, 


' 


N 


THE 

GOLDEN   ROSE 

THE    ROMANCE    OF 
A     STRANGE     SOUL 


BY 

AMELIE     RIVE  S 

(PRINCESS  TROUBETZKOY) 


"  What  the  <wind  is  to  a  bonfire 
and  a  match,  absence  is  to  lo<ve; 
it  kindles  a  great  passion  and 
extinguishes  a  small  one" 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

HARPER  fif  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
MCMVIII 


Copyright,  1908,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  rights  reserved. 
Published  May,  1908. 


SRLE  c:  -       *  ?-•(•*  4 

u&i 


TO 

LOUISA    McLAIN    PLEASANTS 

IN  TOKEN  OF  A  BEAUTIFUL  FRIENDSHIP 
OF  MORE  THAN  TWENTY  YEARS 


"Love  cometh  and  love  goeth, 
And  he  is  wise  who  knoweth 
Whither  and  whence  love  flies. 
But  wise  and  yet  more  wise 

Are  they  that  heed  not  whence  he  flies  or  whither, 
Who  hither  speeds  to-day,  to-morrow  thither; 
Like  to  the  wind  that  as  it  listeth  blows, 
And  man  doth  hear  the  sound  thereof,  but  knows 
Nor  whence  it  comes  nor  whither  yet  it  goes." 

— WILLIAM  WATSON. 


"  Ce  qui  torture  I'dme  plus  que  la  bnbvet&  des 
heures  heurenses,  c'est  la  trahaison,  le  mensonge,  la 
l&chet£.  II  y  a  pis  encore  :  s'apercevoir  tout  d  coup 
quon  a  aim&  un  fantdme." — DORA  MELEGARI. 


THE  GOLDEN   ROSE 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 


i 


"'CREED  from  passion,  fear,  and  anger,"3 

I  said  Meraud  ;  then  again,  lingering  on 
each  word,  " '  Freed  from  passion,  fear,  and 
anger/  That  is  to  be  free  indeed.  Oh,  I 
am  free,  Anice,  I  am  free!" 

"You  look  as  radiant  as  one's  idea  of  Free- 
dom herself,"  said  Anice,  smiling. 

"  I  think  I  am  Freedom  herself.  No,  Free- 
dom has  always  been  herself,  and  I  was  once 
a  slave.  I  am  more  than  Freedom." 

"You  are  certainly  radiant,"  smiled  Anice. 

"I  am  the  king's  daughter,  all  glorious 
within.  It  shines  through." 

"Yes,"  assented  Anice,  still  smiling,  "I 
think  it  does." 

"You  haven't  remarked  my  modesty,  per- 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

haps.  That,  too,  is  a  radiant  virtue,"  ob- 
served Meraud,  and  laughed  out  on  the  last 
words  with  the  sudden  glee  of  a  child. 

"Now  you  look  as  you  did  the  first  day  I 
ever  saw  you,"  said  Anice— -  "just  seventeen; 
no  more,  no  less." 

Meraud,  with  a  half-lifted  tangle  of  roses 
in  her  hand,  gazed  softly  back  at  her. 

"  Eighteen  years  ago!  It's  appalling,  isn't 
it?" 

"  Eighteen  years  of  perfect  friendship.  It's 
amazing,  perhaps.  I  shouldn't  call  it  appall- 
ing, exactly,"  answered  Anice,  with  that  ready 
smile  of  hers  that  never  bored  one. 

"Oh!"  cried  Meraud,  reaching  out  im- 
pulsive arms  across  the  rose-heaped  silver 
tray  between  them,  and  kissing  her  friend's 
charming,  ugly  face-  "oh,  it  is  appalling, 
in  a  way!  What  if  you  were  taken  from 
me  ?  What  if  that  came  ?  What  if  that 
came  ?" 

Anice  began  to  tease  gently,  returning  the 
kisses  between  her  words. 

"'Freed  from  passion,  fear  (I  think  you 
said?),  and—'" 

"No,  no!     Not  altogether  from  fear — fear 
4 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

for  those  I  love.  From  fear  for  myself,  yes 
—but  you,  Anice,  you— 

"I — /—  '  said  Anice,  paling  with  sudden 
passion.  "It  isn't  you  that  should  feel  that 
fear.  It's  I.  It's  I." 

"You  mean  my  heart  ?"  said  Meraud,  after 
a  pause.  But  Anice  could  not  speak  just 
then.  From  behind  the  shelter  of  her  two 
hands  she  nodded  assent. 

"Dear,"  said  Meraud,  after  another  pause, 
"you  know  I  may  live  to  be  an  old  woman— 
though  I  do  hope  not!"  she  broke  in  upon 
herself.  "No  one  wants  to  be  old.  I  don't 
want  to  be  old,  and  I  don't  want  you  to  be 
old.  I  want  us  to  go  together.  But  I  may 
live  ages — ages.  Do  you  hear,  Anice  ?  And 
I  am  careful  for  your  sake.  You  know  I  am. 
And  in  the  end — why,  the  end  has  got  to  come 
some  day,  and  what  could  be  better  than  just 
to  go  out — whiff! — like  a  candle  flame  ?" 

"It — it — doesn't  appeal  to  me,  somehow," 
murmured  Anice,  mirthful  through  tears. 
"Sometimes,  dearest,  your  genius  for  com- 
forting fails  you.  But  I  was  selfish.  I'm 
sorry.  Only — "  And  again  she  could  not 
speak.  Meraud  put  an  arm  thrilling  with 
5 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

love  about  her  shoulders,  and  was  also 
silent,  gazing  out  at  the  terraced,  sunlit 
garden,  between  the  swaying  branches  of  the 
huge  box  -  hedge  under  which  they  were 
seated.  Its  Gothic  hollow  rose  above  them, 
making  a  cool,  green  twilight  in  the  heart 
of  the  June  day.  Nearly  forty  feet  in  height 
it  was,  and  sixteen  in  width,  and  extended 
for  a  hundred  yards  or  so,  walling  in  the 
garden  from  the  lawn  —  a  thing  of  unreal 
and  magic  beauty,  and  the  pride  of  Kings- 
weather.  There  were  many  other  hedges 
of  box  between  the  quiet  old  place  and  the 
outer  world  of  field  and  valley  and  mountain, 
but  this  was  the  Titan,  the  monarch — the 
others  did  not  reach  to  more  than  twenty  feet. 
As  a  child,  it  had  been  to  Meraud  a  palace 
of  dreams.  Now  it  seemed  to  her  a  palace 
of  peace.  She  shut  her  eyes  for  a  moment, 
as  she  sat  there  holding  Anice  against  her, 
and  seemed  to  see  it  within  and  without, 
from  all  points  of  view  and  in  all  its  differ- 
ent phases,  with  a  sort  of  astral  vision.  Now 
it  was  swaying,  dense  and  livid,  in  the  wind, 
before  a  thunder-storm.  "Flying  buttresses; 
that  is  what  the  great  outer  boughs  look  like 
6 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

when  they  sway  like  that,"  she  had  said  one 
day  to  Anice.  "I  never  knew  what  flying 
buttresses  meant  before."  Now  it  glistened 
darkly  with  winter  rain  in  the  bleak,  winter 
sunlight.  Now  it  wore  its  spring  attire  of 
thousands  of  little  yellowish  rosettes,  and 
hummed  like  a  sea-cave  with  the  bourdon- 
ment  of  bees.  She  was  not  thinking,  as  she 
saw  all  this  in  fancy,  merely  gazing  dreamily 
with  her  mind's  eye;  and  then,  all  at  once, 
it  was  as  when  one  suddenly  becomes  aware 
of  the  ticking  of  a  clock  that  one  has  ceased 
to  hear,  and  she  became  aware  of  herself 
and  the  present  moment. 

"Listen,  Anice,"  she  said.  "Listen  to 
me,  dearest.  I  don't  think  we  ought  to 
make  a  terror  of  this  subject,  never  mention 
it,  or  anything  like  that;  but  I  do  think  we 
ought  to  try  to  speak  of  it  in  a  different  way 
when  we  do  speak  of  it.  Are  you  listening, 
dear  ?  Well,  then,  I  began  it  to-day.  It 
was  very  selfish  of  me — yes,  it  was — but  we 
both  believe  in  the  'Great  Law  that  mightily 
and  sweetly  ordereth  all  things.'  So  why 
not  rest  on  it,  dear?  That  is  peace;  that 
means  peace." 

7 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

"Ah,"  said  Anice,  if  not  bitterly,  still 
very  sadly,  "you  are  far  more  'freed  from 
passion,  fear,  and  anger'  than  I  am.  I  am 
an  eager,  ardent,  ridiculous,  young-old  maid. 
You  have  learned  through  experience,  your 
own  experience — " 

"Anice,  Anice,  who  has  had  an  experience 
like  yours,  and  learned  such  beautiful  things 
from  it  ?" 

"You  mean  my  crooked  back?"  asked 
Anice,  as  simply  as  Meraud  had  said,  "You 
mean  my  heart  ?" 

"Yes,  I  do!  I  do!"  cried  her  friend. 
"Precious  crooked  back,  what  has  it  not 
taught  you  and  me — and  me!"  And  she 
turned  and  kissed  it,  as  a  lover  might  have 
kissed  his  mistress's  feet. 

"Dear  heart!"  said  Anice,  stroking  the 
bent  head.  "Dear  little  great  heart!" 

There  was  quite  a  long  silence  between 
them  after  that,  but  they  were  "thinking 
together,"  as  Meraud  put  it — a  union  closer 
than  any  words  could  bring. 

"You  seem  such  a  girl!"  said  Anice,  sud- 
denly— "such  a  slip  of  a  girl!" 

"I  was  thinking  that  I  felt  like  one." 
8 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

"Of  course — I  knew  that." 

"But  how  strange,  Anice,  after  all  I've 
been  through!  yet  it's  there — the  girl  feeling, 
I  mean.  I'm  like  a  rose  cut  back  to  the 
roots.  I'm  all  fresh  little  twigs  and  leaves 
and  buds — oh,  but  it's  different!"  she  ended. 
"This  peace  —  that  I  should  ever  know 
peace!  That  I  should  have  given  up  all 
thought  of  love — a  great  love  between  man 
and  woman,  I  mean — and  yet  be  happy — 
golden  happy!" 

"You  who  were  born  for  love,"  said  Anice, 
under  her  breath.  But  Meraud  moved  her 
head  in  slow  negation  where  it  still  lay  on 
her  friend's  shoulder,  a  little  mystic  smile 
stirring  her  lips. 

"My  kind  of  love  doesn't  exist  in  this 
world,"  she  said.  "In  some  other,  yes — I 
know  that,  I  remember  it.  But  here  ?  No." 

"  Dearest,  how  can  you  tell  ?  How  can 
you  be  so  sure  ?  It  may  be  waiting  for  you 
there — just  round  that  curve  of  the  shrub- 
bery." 

"I  tell  you  it  doesn't  exist  on  this  earth. 
Men  don't  want  it.  Some  women,  maybe. 
What  does  love  on  this  earth  lead  to  ?  Al- 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

ways  the  same  end — always,  always — and 
it  is  an  end.  It  ends  all  the  beauty,  all  the 
dream,  all  the  mystery.  Why,  what  men 
call '  love*  on  this  earth — it's  just  a  hungriness, 
Anice.  My  kind  of  love  is  a  thirst.  You 
see,  I  have  thought  and  thought  of  it  all,  so 
often,  for  such  long,  long  years.  There  is 
a  mighty  law  that  few  people  seem  to  know 
about.  It's  the  law  that  fulfilment — on  this 
earth — means  death.  What  people  call  the 
fulfilment  of  love  means  love's  death." 

"Oh,  Meraud,  that  is  a  very  hard  saying!" 

"It  is  true." 

"No,  no,  it  can't  be  true — it  wouldn't  be 
true  for  all." 

Meraud  lifted  dark,  clairvoyant  eyes  to 
hers. 

"You  think  that  it  would  have  been  true 
for  you,  my  own  dear,"  she  said,  "but  you 
should  thank  God  every  moment  whenever 
you  think  of  that  withheld  love — thank  Him 
for  withholding  it.  Who  was  it  said  that 
'he  who  loses  his  love  shall  keep  her'?  I 
can't  think  just  now.  But  it's  true,  it's 
true,  for  this  world." 

"And  yet,  Meraud,  you  are  so  alive!" 
10 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Yes,  thank  God!"  said  the  other,  stretch- 
ing out  one  slight,  round  arm  before  her,  and 
clenching  and  unclenching  her  supple  hand, 
gazing  seriously  at  it  as  she  did  so.  "Yes, 
I  am  alive  in  every  fibre — as  alive  as  a  flame, 
I  think.  Just  this  living  is  a  sheer  joy." 

"And  you  think  you've  done  with  it  all  ?" 

"With  'love,'  you  mean  ?  With  what  peo- 
ple call  'love'?  Oh  yes!  Oh,  gladly,  yes! 
It's  odd  that  you  don't  feel  my  feeling  in  this. 
Why  don't  you  ?  You  do  in  everything  else." 

"I  don't  know,"  Anice  said,  slowly,  "I 
think  it's  perhaps —  She  broke  off,  look- 
ing down  at  their  clasped  hands  in  a  sort 
of  puzzlement.  "It's  because  you  always 
suggest  that  word  to  me  more  than  any 
other,"  she  said,  at  last — "just  that  word, 
Love." 

Meraud  opened  wide  her  arms  with  an- 
other of  her  happy  laughs. 

"I  am  love!"  she  cried — "the  great  love, 
the  true  love,  the  love  for  all  that  is,  the  love 
that  is  real.  The  other  is  all  Maya  —  all 
illusion." 

"But  what  a  beautiful  illusion!" 

"Yes,  nothing  more  beautiful;  but  I  know 
ii 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

it  now.  Maya!  Maya!  'Under  every  flower 
is  coiled  a  serpent' — that  is  it.  Under  every 
flower  of  that  human  love  is  coiled  a  serpent — 
the  serpent." 

'The  serpent?'"  asked  Anice. 

"Desire,"  said  Meraud.  "Appetite — hun- 
griness." 

Anice  sighed,  and  looked  back  at  her  with 
a  helpless  distress  in  her  eyes. 

"  I  know,"  said  Meraud,  comfortingly — "  I 
know.  I've  dreamed,  too — oh,  many  dreams! 
Now  I  am  awake.  In  the  place  that  I  came 
from,  in  that  other  world — yes,  it  exists  there; 
but  here — no,  and  no,  and  no!" 

"Meraud,"  said  Anice,  with  one  of  her 
abrupt  changes.  She  caught  the  other's 
hands  in  both  her  own,  and  drew  her  tow- 
ards her.  "Meraud,"  she  said  again,  "you 
shouldn't  let  your  dreadful  marriage  poison 
the  whole  world  for  you.  You  should  not, 
my  dearest." 

Meraud  looked  quietly  back  at  her  with 
the  clear  serenity  of  her  face  unchanged. 

"  It  hasn't  poisoned  the  world  for  me,  dear 
Anice,"  she  said.     "It  has  only  taught  me 
many,  many  things— secrets  of  God,  I  think 
12 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

they  are."     The  little   mystic   smile  was  on 
her  lips  again. 

"You  shouldn't  let  one  man — one  poor, 
blind,  cruel  man—  "  she  began,  but  Meraud 
checked  her. 

"I  was  'in  love'  with  him—  '  she  said, 
distinctly,  in  her  pure,  caressing  voice. 

"Yes,  but—" 

' — and  in  that  love  were  all  the  dreams 
that  you  ever  dreamed.  And  now  I  am 
awake." 

"  But  Meraud — darling — another  man— 

"It  isn't  the  man — not  really,"  Meraud  in- 
terrupted. "  It's  the  man's  idea  of  love." 

"  But  all  men's  idea  of  love  is  not  the  same. 
All  men—" 

"The  end  is  the  same,"  persisted  the  clear 
voice. 

"Oh,  somehow,  I  am  very  unhappy  for 
you!"  Anice  broke  out.  "I  know  that  you 
tell  me  you're  happy,  that  you're  content, 
that  you  don't  want  anything  more,  that 
you're — " 

"'Freed  from  passion,  fear,  and  anger'- 

just  that,"   said   Meraud,   smiling,   and   her 

smile  was  really  one  of  happiness  and  con- 

13 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

tent.  "Not  wholly  free,  of  course — I  should 
be  in  Nirvana  if  I  were — but  free  to  the  ex- 
tent that  I  don't  want  things,  those  things, 
any  more.  I  don't  want — 

"Miss  Meraud!  Aw,  Miss  Meraud!"  came 
in  shrill  tones  from  a  rustling  among  the  box 
leaves. 

"Here  we  are,  Dinky!"  Meraud  called 
back.  "What  is  it  ?  Is  lunch  ready  ?" 

"Nawm,  'tain't  dat,"  responded  the  chan- 
ticleer voice  of  Dinky,  followed  by  her  trim, 
dartlike  figure  in  a  sunny  opening.  Dinky 
was  of  a  plum  black,  very  glistening,  her 
head  covered,  as  by  an  astrakhan  cap,  with 
short,  crapy  locks  that,  from  her  birth,  had 
never  grown  more  than  an  inch  in  length. 
She  had  the  eyes  of  an  astute,  semihuman 
cow,  and  her  teeth  were  those  of  her  race — 
yellow-white  and  even  as  kernels  of  corn. 
She  was  laced  to  a  wasplike  elegance,  and 
wore  a  pink  calico  gown  with  a  kerchief  of 
the  same  knotted  over  the  astrakhan  cap. 
Somehow  Anice  felt  Dinky  to  be  a  delight- 
ful and  God-sent  apparition  of  the  normal. 

"Well,  what  is  it,  then,  Dinky?"  she  has- 
tened to  inquire. 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Tis  a  young  genTman,"  replied  Dinky. 
"  He's  cropin'  roun'  in  de  front  hall.  /  didn't 
know  wherrer  to  ax  him  in  de  parlor." 

"A  young  gentleman!"  cried  Meraud. 

"It  sutny  ain't  a  young  lady,"  giggled 
Dinky.  "He's  got  on  mo'  boots  an'  ridin'- 
pants  an'  things  'n  you  ever  saw  in  yo'  bawn 
days.  An'  he  moughty  muddy  an'  onrestful," 
she  wound  up.  "You-all  better  come  'long 
quick.  Look  like  he  turrable  busy  in  he 
mind." 

"But  who  can  it — "  began  Meraud. 

"Hyuh  he  ticket,"  popped  Dinky,  darting 
forward  a  visiting-card.  Meraud  took  it 
and  read  slowly: 

"'Mr.  Steven  Gordon  Trafford."' 

"Now,  who  in  the  world  is  'Mr.  Steven 
Gordon  Trafford'  ?"  she  queried,  lifting 
dazed  eyes  from  the  bit  of  pasteboard. 

"/  dunno!"  said  Dinky,  cheerfully. 


II 


THEY  found  a  young  man  in  the  "front 
hall,"  looking  very  "onrestful"  indeed,  for 
he  was  standing,  with  knitted  brows  and  one 
foot  advanced  towards  the  threshold,  bend- 
ing his  riding-crop  back  and  forth  against 
his  thigh  with  the  perturbed  air  of  one  who 
meditates  instant  flight. 

"Good-morning,  Mr.  Trafford,"  said  Me- 
raud,  holding  out  her  hand.  "I'm  sorry 
you've  been  kept  waiting — my  cousin,  Miss 
Mayo,  Mr.  Trafford."  It  was  Meraud's  way 
to  offer  her  hand  to  every  one  who  came  un- 
der her  roof.  The  young  man  took  it  in 
his  as  frankly  as  it  was  given,  and  his  face 
relaxed. 

"Are  you  Mrs. — "  He  hesitated,  and 
looked  from  one  to  the  other.  "Is  Mrs. 
Cabell  here  ?"  he  ended. 

"I  am  Mrs.  Cabell,"  said  Meraud,  and 
she  smiled  with  the  little  feeling  of  pleasure 
16 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

it  always  gave  her  to  be  taken  for  a  girl. 
The  look  in  TrafforcTs  eyes  was  like  what  a 
start  would  have  been  in  another,  but  he 
only  said: 

"I'm  afraid  Price's  letter  never  reached 
you,  Mrs.  Cabell  —  John  Price,  Professor 
Price,  of  the  University,  I  mean.  We  are 
old  friends." 

"Oh,  Jack  Price!"  said  Meraud.  "He's 
a  cousin  of  mine— we're  all  cousins,  more  or 
less,  in  Virginia,  as  you  doubtless  know." 

Trafford  smiled  for  the  first  time  a  de- 
lightful, one  -  sided  smile  that  showed  his 
crowded  white  teeth,  and  sent  one  eyebrow 
higher  than  the  other  in  a  whimsical  fashion. 

"  He's  more  or  less  a  cousin  of  mine,  too,'* 
he  said.  "My  mother  was  a  Virginian — a 
Gordon." 

"Oh,  your  middle  name!"  said  Meraud, 
glancing  down  at  the  card  that  she  still  held, 
then  up  at  him.  There  was  something  in 
his  whole  expression  that  she  liked  very 
much,  for  she  added,  smiling  again,  "Then 
I  suppose  we're  more  or  less  cousins  also; 
I've  a  Gordon  grandfather  and  two  aunts — 
that  I  know  of." 

17 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"That  would  be  too  delightful,"  said  Traf- 
ford,  gravely,  and  then  they  both  laughed  to- 
gether. 

"And  I  haven't  even  asked  you  to  sit 
down,"  Meraud  exclaimed,  suddenly,  a  little 
confused.  "Come  into  the  drawing-room — 
it's  cooler  there.  I  see  that  Anice  has  gone 
to  look  after  the  lunch.  You'll  lunch  with 
us,  won't  you  ?" 

"It's  most  awfully  kind  of  you,"  replied 
Trafford.  "I'm  horribly  muddy,  though." 
He  glanced  down  at  his  riding-boots  covered 
with  red  clay. 

"  Oh,  you  can  go  to  the  South  Chamber,  and 
I'll  send  Chapman  to  you.  He'll  do  your 
boots  for  you — if  you  don't  mind  waiting  a 
few  moments." 

"You  know  it's  really  charmingly  kind  of 
you,"  said  TrafFord,  unoriginal  but  sincere. 
He  thought  her  way  of  beginning  most  of 
her  sentences  with  "  Oh  "  simply  delightful, 
and  wondered  if  it  were  a  Virginianism  or  a 
pretty  trick  of  her  own. 

"  Then  you'll  stay  ?"  asked  Meraud.  "  I'll 
call  Chapman." 

There  seemed  to  be  no  bells  about  the 
18 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

place,  for  she  was  starting  to  do  so,  when 
Trafford  stopped  her. 

"If  you  don't  mind,"  he  said,  a  little  ner- 
vously, "I'd  like  to  explain  about  that  letter." 

"About  Jack  Price's  letter?  Why,  of 
course." 

She  had  preceded  him  into  the  drawing- 
room  and  was  opening,  slightly,  the  faded 
green  shutters,  through  which  a  cool,  sea- 
like  twilight  filtered  into  the  apartment. 

"Yes,  it's  really  an  apartment,"  thought 
Trafford.  "What  a  great,  fresh,  spacious 
place!  I  like  it.  Bless  me!  how  I  do  like 
it!" 

The  walls  were  of  smooth  white  plaster, 
the  ceiling  charmingly  ornamented  with  scroll- 
work of  colonial  design.  Dim,  blurry  pas- 
tels and  old  colored  prints  made  a  soft  back- 
ground of  mellow  tones.  The  three  windows 
overlooking  the  lawn  were  draped  in  faded, 
cream-colored  brocade  with  painted,  Dresden- 
china-looking  nosegays.  There  was  a  beau- 
tiful old  spinnet  near  a  tarnished  mirror. 
The  chimney-piece  was  by  Adams,  a  lovely 
thing,  tinted  like  old  ivory  and  inlaid  with 
delicate  browns.  All  this  Trafford  saw,  as 
3  19 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

though  looking  through  clear  green  water. 
The  perfume  of  the  place  charmed  him  even 
more,  a  mixture  of  beeswax  and  potpourri, 
and  old  silk  hangings  blended  with  the 
musty  yet  pleasant  smell  of  the  old  musical 
instrument.  Now  as  Meraud  opened  the 
second  pair  of  window-shutters  and  he  sprang 
to  help  her,  he  could  see  more  plainly  the 
polished  -  oak  floor,  strewn  with  old  French 
carpets,  and  a  queer  portrait  of  an  old  dame 
attired  in  a  pink  shepherdess  gown  looped 
with  roses  and  wearing  a  wreath  of  May  roses 
on  her  winter  curls. 

"Now,  sit  down  and  tell  me  about  the  let- 
ter," said  Meraud,  settling  herself  in  a  little 
Louis  Seize  powder-chair,  and  motioning  him 
to  a  big  fauteuil  covered  with  green-and- 
white  chintz. 

"You  see,"  began  Trafrbrd,  modestly,  "I'm 
an  historian." 

"Dear  me!"  said  Meraud, laughing  outright. 
"One  would  never  think  it  to  look  at  you." 
Then  she  stopped,  frowning  inwardly.  "I'm 
always  too  familiar  with  people  that  I  like 
at  first  sight,"  she  reflected.  "I'll  be  more 
conventional." 

20 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

"You're  exceedingly  kind,"  said  Trafford, 
bowing,  but  his  eyes  danced,  and  they  were 
pleasant  eyes,  whether  amused  or  sober — 
friendly,  unintrusive  eyes. 

Meraud  liked  him  more  and  more. 

"That  was  a  very  silly  speech  of  mine," 
she  remarked,  severely.    "  But  an  historian— 
Her  mouth  twitched  a  little.     "Now,  if  you 
had  said  a — 

"Don't  say  a  novelist!"  he  pleaded.  "I 
don't  think  I  could  bear  that  with  good- 
humor." 

"Why — but—  '  began  Meraud,  puzzled. 

"Of  course  there  are  novelists  and  novel- 
ists. But  I  couldn't  be  George  Meredith  or 
Rudyard  Kipling  or— 

"We  are  really  talking  great  nonsense,  you 
know,"  interrupted  Meraud,  laughing  her 
light-hearted  laugh. 

"But  it's  so  nice  to  talk  nonsense." 

"Oh,  it  is!  But  how  few  people  know 
it!" 

"So  few  are  nonsensical  enough." 

"Yes,  it  takes  real  wisdom  to  be  silly." 

"I  am  very,  very  wise,  then." 

"You  are  very  likable,"  thought  Meraud, 
21 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

and,  though  she  did  not  know  it,  her  eyes 
said  so. 

"You,"  thought  the  young  man,  "are  the 
most  beautiful  and  adorable  being  that  I  have 
yet  encountered."  But  his  eyes  said  nothing 
of  the  sort,  which  was  a  very  fortunate  thing 
for  him,  just  then.  Perhaps  he  knew  it.  He 
had  great  powers  of  intuition. 

"Now,  about  this  letter,"  he  began  again, 
assuming  a  serious  air.  "Price  said  that  he 
would  write  and  explain  me,  so  to  speak. 
You  see,  I  want  to  write  a  thorough  history 
of  this  part  of  Virginia — it  is  so  choke-full  of 
historical  interest  and  importance,  and  it's 
never  been  done." 

"Why,  yes,  it's  a  delightful  idea,"  said 
Meraud,  with  sympathy.  She  leaned  for- 
ward in  her  chair  and  propped  her  chin  on 
one  hand. 

"Her  face  looks  like  a  pearl  under  a  wave 
in  this  light,"  thought  Traffbrd,  with  no  con- 
sciousness of  being  poetical.  He  rather  de- 
spised poets — modern  young  poets,  that  is. 

"  That  seems  delightful,"  Meraud  repeated. 
"Do  go  on." 

"Well,  of  course,  I'm  very  keen  about 
22 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

manuscripts  —  manuscripts  bearing  on  the 
subject;  and — well,  to  put  it  bluntly,  Price 
told  me  that  there  were  a  lot  of  very  rare 
manuscripts  and  letters  here  at  Kingsweather, 
some  of  your  grandfather's  state  correspond- 
ence, you  know.  I  hope  you  don't  think  me 
too  presuming." 

"Why,  I  don't  think  you  presuming  at  all," 
said  Meraud,  sincerely  surprised.  "How  is 
an — an  historian" — she  smiled  through  the 
slim  fingers  that  still  rested  against  her  mouth 
— "  how  is  he  to  write  history  without  histori- 
cal documents  to  help  him  ?  My  grandfather 
would  have  been  only  too  glad  to  have  them 
help  you." 

"Oh,  you  are  a  dear!"  cried  Trafford,  im- 
pulsively, and  then  blushed  like  a  Guillaume 
le  Noir  rose,  a  deep,  dusky  dark  red.  So 
completely  did  he  accomplish  this  unusual 
feat  that  the  tears  came  into  his  eyes,  and  he 
thanked  his  gods  for  the  dim  light  of  the  room. 

"I — I  am  horribly  ashamed  of  myself," 
was  all  that  he  could  think  of  to  say.  "  I— 
I  can't  think  how — I  can't  expect  you  to  for- 
give me,"  he  ended,  helplessly. 

"One  would  think,"  said  Meraud,  liking 
23 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

him  so  much  for  his  confusion  that  she  could 
have  wished  to  call  him  "a  dear"  in  return— 
"one  would  think  that  I  were  a  chanoinesse 
at  least — though  I  don't  quite  know  what 
that  means,"  she  supplemented,  candidly. 
"An  abbess — is  it?" 

"I  believe  so,"  said  Traffbrd,  but  his  tone 
was  both  uneasy  and  subdued. 

Meraud  regarded  him  with  growing  merri- 
ment. 

"Well,  I'm  not,"  she  asserted, 

"  I  beg  your  pardon — not — what  ?  I  don't 
quite—" 

"Not  an  abbess." 

"Oh." 

"  Don't  you  see  ?" 

"  I'm  afraid  I — I—  He  hesitated,  almost 
painfully.  He  was  even  unduly  overwhelmed 
by  his  lapse. 

"Why,  not  being  an  abbess,  my  dignity 
can  survive  being  called  'a  dear.'  Do  you 
see  now  ?  I  even  think,"  she  continued,  re- 
flectively, "that  I  am  rather  'a  dear." 

"Oh,  you—  '  began  the  young  man,  and 
then,  to  his  utter  consternation,  felt  the  blood 
rushing  into  his  face  again. 
24 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Oh,  ass!  ass!"  he  conjured  himself,  men- 
tally. "That's  all  she'll  ever  think  of  you 
as,  a  vast,  uncompromising,  stupendous  don- 
key." 

And  here  he  heard  her  voice,  sweet,  clear, 
calm,  caressing  —  it  was  as  caressing  for  a 
pickaninny  as  for  a  bishop — saying,  as  it  were 
from  a  far  place: 

"Do  be  comforted.  Do  you  know,  I  think 
you're  rather  a — 'a  dear,'  too,  for  blushing 
so  beautifully — at  your  age." 

It  was  at  this  crisis  that  Dinky  appeared, 
like  a  pink  pennon,  in  the  breeze  that  swept 
through  the  long  hall  from  door  to  door. 

"Miss  Meraud,"  said  she,  "lunch  done 
rade-y.  An'  please,  ma'am,  to  'scuse  Chap- 
man. He  maw  done  tuck  wid  a  misery  in 
her  stomach,  and  he  bleeged  to  step  over  to 
Green  Springs.  I  gwine  wait  on  de  table." 

"Very  well,  Dinky,"  said  her  lady.  "I'm 
sorry  Aunt  Hannah's  ill.  Find  out  if  she 
needs  anything,  please." 

Dinky  fluttered  away,  displaying  neat  bow- 
legs  under  her  flying  skirts,  and  Meraud 
turned  to  TrafFord. 

"The  place  that  Chapman  is  going  to 
25 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"  step  over  to,"  she  smiled,  "  is  only  a  little 
matter  of  six  miles  away." 

"What  a  quaint  expression!"  said  Trafford, 
perfunctorily.  He  was  thinking  that  he  was 
glad  that  her  name  was  an  unusual  one.  It 
seemed  made  for  her,  as  all  else  about  her 
seemed  made  for  her:  the  airy,  old-time  house; 
the  rambling  grounds  and  gardens;  Dinky, 
the  charming-faced  friend  with  her  twisted, 
pathetic  little  figure;  her  gown  of  pale  Indian 
muslin,  with  its  belt  of  turquoise;  and  the 
wide,  drooping  hat  that  she  had  not  yet  re- 
moved. She  drew  out  the  long,  turquoise- 
headed  pin  that  held  it  in  place  as  they 
crossed  the  hall  into  the  library,  and  threw 
both  on  a  chair  in  passing.  Then  he  saw 
that  she  had  clouds  of  gauzy,  dim-brown  hair 
like  a  child's,  drawn  loosely  back  from  her 
forehead  and  coiled  and  recoiled  into  a  great 
knot  at  the  back  of  an  imperious  little  head— 
for  Meraud  was  by  nature  imperious.  She 
said  simple  prayers  night  and  morning  in  re- 
gard to  this  trait. 

"And  her  brow!"  thought  Trafford,  when 
she  turned  again  to  speak  to  him.     "What  a 
lovely,  pure  brow!  it  is  like  the  sky  of  her 
26 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

face."     And    again    he   was    unconscious   of 
being  poetical. 

The  lunch-table  was  heaped  with  the  roses 
that  Anice  and  Meraud  had  prepared  that 
morning,  and  its  dark  surface  gleamed  be- 
tween mats  of  old  Dutch  lace. 

"I  like  to  see  the  mahogany  for  breakfast 
and  lunch,"  explained  Meraud,  as  they 
seated  themselves.  "It  looks  odd  to  you, 
doesn't  it  ?" 

"It  seems  delightfully  Southern — what  is 
prettiest  in  one's  dreams  of  Southern  life," 
said  Trafford.  He  glanced  about  the  room 
as  he  spoke.  The  walls  were  of  the  same 
smooth  plaster  as  those  of  the  drawing-room, 
but  wainscoted  to  within  a  few  feet  of  the 
ceiling.  This  panelling  was  painted  white, 
and  above  it  hung  some  portraits,  indif- 
ferently executed  but  charming  of  subject, 
and  pleasant  in  tone  because  of  time's  over- 
touch.  One  side  of  the  room  was  almost 
entirely  hidden  by  an  old  cupboard  lined 
with  rare  china  which  glowed  through  glass 
panes.  Through  the  three  windows  which 
corresponded  to  those  in  the  drawing-room, 
one  saw  the  lawn  with  its  clumps  of  acacias, 
27 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

of  tulip -trees,  of  silver  poplars,  of  horse- 
chestnuts,  and,  as  a  background  everywhere, 
the  stately  hedges  of  box.  Trafford  noticed 
that  the  plates  from  which  they  ate  dessert 
were  signed  by  Jacques,  and  that  the  silver, 
dented  but  brilliant,  bore  different  coats  of 
arms. 

"Some  of  it  belonged  to  the  Randolphs 
and  some  to  the  Byrds  of  Westover,"  ex- 
plained Meraud,  again  following  his  look. 
It's  dear  old  silver,  isn't  it  ?" 

"The  Randolphs  —  the  Byrds,"  repeated 
TrafFord.  "I  feel  as  if  I  were  in  the  first 
chapter  of  a  colonial  novel.  I  wonder  if 
you  know  how  romantic  it  all  is  —  this  old 
place  and  all — or  if  you  have  grown  used 
to  it  ?" 

"Oh  no,  I  think  one  feels  it  always," 
said  Meraud,  eagerly.  "I  have  lived  much 
abroad,  too;  that  makes  it  all  very  vivid  and 
fresh  to  me.  And  Anice  feels  it  quite  as 
much  as  I  do,"  she  ended,  turning  to  her 
friend. 

"It's  nice  to  know  that  you  feel  it,  too," 
said  Anice,  giving  him  a  friendly  look. 

Here  Dinky,  setting  down  the  last  old 
28 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

cut-crystal  finger-bowl  at  Meraud's  elbow, 
breathed  in  a  whistling  whisper,  only  less 
shrill  than  her  ordinary  voice: 

"Miss  Meraud,  ef  you  ax  ra<?,  /  say  hits 
gwine  stawm  sumthin'  turrable  To'  long." 


Ill 


THE  estate  of  Kingsweather  had  been  a 
royal  grant  to  the  Cabells  and  had  never 
been  bought  or  sold.  Its  first  owner  had 
named  it  in  honor  of  Charles  II.,  who  had 
made  le  beau  temps  for  the  Cabell  family. 
The  older  portion  of  the  house,  rambling  and 
panelled,  was  over  two  hundred  years  old, 
but  the  wings  and  front  hall  had  been  added 
by  Meraud's  grandfather  and  were  not  more 
than  a  hundred,  while  the  first  building  of 
all  had  been  burned  down  twice  by  the  Ind- 
ians and  there  remained  of  it  only  a  few 
rough  foundation-stones. 

Meraud  had  inherited  the  place  from  her 
father.  Her  husband  had  been  a  distant 
cousin  of  the  same  name.  It  was  a  lovable 
old  house,  sunny,  shabby,  of  an  intense  per- 
sonality, with  that  irregularity  of  feature 
which  makes  some  faces  so  endearing.  The 
rooms  and  halls  were  full  of  furniture  of 
3° 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

various  styles  and  periods  that  contradicted 
each  other  flatly  and  yet  somehow  never 
quarrelled.  Sheraton  and  Chippendale  hob- 
nobbed quaintly  with  Louis  Quinze  and 
Louis  Seize,  and  formal  Empire  chairs  and 
sofas  made  a  background  for  more  comfort- 
able kinsmen  covered  with  bright  chintz. 
The  square  panels  of  the  "back  hall"  were 
hung  with  old  hunting  prints.  A  Venetian 
cabinet  in  the  "middle  hall"  held  silver  cups 
won  by  the  thorough-breds  that  had  belong- 
ed to  sporting  ancestors.  There  were  stags' 
heads  and  wild  beasts'  skins  and  collections 
of  old  swords  and  fire-arms.  Little  stairs 
went  up  and  down,  leading  from  the  front 
portion  of  the  house  to  the  back;  little  crooked 
passages  and  corridors  ran  hither  and  thither 
to  different  rooms.  It  outraged  every  idea  of 
homogeneousness,  and  yet  it  was  as  winning 
as  only  a  house  can  be  that  has  grown  bit 
by  bit,  and  year  by  year,  and  charming  with 
that  strong,  zestful  charm  known  only  to  the 
incorrect  and  unconventional. 

"What  a  setting  for  her — what  a  setting!" 
thought  Trafford.  "I  wonder  if  she  knows 
it  ?  But  then  she  must — she's  too  intelligent 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

not  to.  There's  no  consciousness  about  her, 
though.  She's  as  simple  and  natural  as  a 
child — a  little  child,"  he  wound  up,  following, 
with  a  certain  queer  tenderness  that  surprised 
him,  the  slight  figure  that  was  passing  out 
upon  the  columned  portico. 

"If  it's  really  going  to  'stawm  turrable,' 
you  must  stop  the  night  with  us,"  she  said  to 
him  over  her  shoulder  as  she  went. 

The  sudden  surge  in  Trafford's  breast  at 
this  remark  surprised  him  still  further.  He 
knew  something  of  Meraud  Cabell's  story. 
She  was  not  a  woman  for  a  man  to  love  with 
much  hope  of  return.  "Not  with  any," 
snapped  Trafford  to  himself,  for  he  was  an- 
noyed that  such  a  thought  had  ever  oc- 
curred to  him.  "One  doesn't  escape  from 
a  blazing  prairie  fire  to  run  straight  into 
a  furnace.  She  must  think  of  all  love  like 
that,  poor  girl — for  she's  only  a  girl.  She 
looks  it  and  she  is  it,  in  spite  of  every- 
thing—  virginal  —  yes,  that  is  what  she  is, 
virginal.  I  never  saw  such  eyes;  never  eyes 
so  splendid  and  so  pure  at  once.  And  it's 
not  the  purity  of  ignorance;  it's  the  purity  of 
choice.  She's  very  wonderful.  I  must  re- 
32 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

member.  I  must  be  very  careful.  I  must 
take  care." 

Aloud  he  had  answered  that  he  couldn't 
think  of  putting  them  out  to  that  extent,  that 
he  was  afraid  Price  would  be  anxious  about 
him,  etc.,  etc. 

"Now,  be  honest,"  said  Meraud,  smiling. 
"  It's  only  that  you  haven't  your  luggage  with 
you.  But  Anice's  brother  Tom  comes  always 
for  the  shooting  in  autumn,  and  he  leaves 
all  sorts  of  things  here — you  could  be  quite 
comfortable.  Besides,  I  can  'phone  Jack 
that  you're  here.  Seriously,"  she  wound  up, 
"if  that  blue-black  cloud  over  the  Western 
Mountains  means  trouble,  you'll  have  to  stay 
—you  couldn't  possibly  ride  back  to  the 
University  in  such  weather;  and  even  after 
the  storm  passes  the  creeks  will  be  tor- 
rents." 

"You're  really  too  kind,"  said  Trafford, 
earnestly.  "I've  heard  all  my  life  of  Virginia 
hospitality,  but — " 

"And  now  you  must  test  it,"  Meraud 
finished  for  him. 

"Be  reasonable.  Look  at  that!"  she  cried, 
pointing.  A  great  kriss  of  rose-white  light- 
33 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

ning  had  rent  the  cloud  down  to  the  moun- 
tain-top. They  waited — then  came  the  low, 
throaty  roar  of  distant  thunder. 

"Dinky  was  right,"  said  Anice.  "You'll 
have  to  stop  with  us,  Mr.  Traffbrd." 

Trafford  bowed,  but  his  eyes  were  on 
Meraud.  There  was  a  sort  of  white  ecstasy 
on  her  face,  thrust  upward  and  forward  as  if 
to  meet  the  storm.  She  did  not  seem  pale  to 
him,  but  to  glow  with  a  sort  of  tingling  white- 
ness. 

"Oh,  how  I  love  it!  How  I  love  a  thunder- 
storm!" she  said,  as  though  answering  his 
thought. 

"I  know,"  said  TrafFord,  in  a  low  voice. 
He  was  standing  beside  her  now,  his  face,  too, 
upturned. 

"  But  Anice,"  exclaimed  Meraud,  coming 
to  herself  with  a  start,  "poor  Anice — she 
hates  it.  There!  I  knew  it — she  has  gone. 
I  must  run  after  her  and  see  that  Dinky  stays 
with  her.  Then  I'll  come  back  and  we  can 
watch  it  together." 

Ever  afterwards  the  sound  of  thunder  had 
for  TrafFord  the  power  of  recalling  that  exact 
hour  in  every  detail,  as  a  perfume  has.  Side 
34 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

by  side  they  stood  on  the  stone  porch  and 
watched  it  come.  The  air  had  grown  heavy 
and  very  still.  The  sunlight  had  changed. 
It  glared  about  them  with  the  strange  wan- 
ness of  an  eclipse.  Overhead  the  swallows 
streamed  shrilling.  From  distant  fields  the 
homing  pigeons  began  to  rise  and  wheel,  the 
eerie  storm-light  striking  silver  glints  from 
breast  and  wing.  Then  came  the  wind, 
first  in  hot  puffs,  flooding  them  with  all  the 
long  noon  sweetness  of  the  old  garden,  with 
the  dense  fragrance  of  sun-warmed  straw- 
berries, and  the  pure,  unearthly  scent  of 
calycanthus  buds,  with  odors  of  the  rich, 
burned  loam  and  thousands  of  roses  whose 
petals  already  sped  across  the  lawn  like 
scared  pink,  and  crimson,  and  moon  -  white 
moths. 

Then  came  a  cooler  gust,  dank  with  penny- 
royal and  the  sharp  tang  of  fields  and  woods 
already  rained  upon.  Then  a  pause,  and 
then  a  winnowing  as  from  all  the  vans  of 
heaven.  The  trees  bent  and  writhed  and 
poured  their  foliage  out  upon  the  wind  until 
the  pale  linings  of  their  leaves,  blown  upper- 
most, made  them  seem  livid  with  fear.  Now 
4  35 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

showers  of  yellowy  Acacia  leaves  mingled 
with  the  rose  petals.  The  cat-birds  darted 
like  steel-blue  arrows  for  the  dark  hollows 
of  the  box.  Shutters  slammed  to  and  fro, 
white  curtains  swirled  out  at  windows  like 
scared  ghosts.  Up  and  down,  to  and  fro 
in  the  big  halls,  one  heard  the  pattering  feet 
of  maids  and  pickaninnies  hastening  to  close 
doors  and  blinds.  Somewhere  in  a  near 
meadow  a  mare  whinnied  to  her  foal  and  the 
foal  answered  her.  And  around  and  above 
all  the  lightning  flared  with  the  fierce  allure- 
ment of  danger.  Still  the  rain  did  not  come, 
though  the  thunder  volleyed  and  crashed  and 
withdrew,  muttering,  and  pealed  forth  anew 
with  redoubled  clangor. 

Suddenly  a  flash,  more  vast  and  blinding 
than  any  that  had  gone  before,  revealed  to 
them  huge  tunnellings  of  curdled  gold — like 
the  stupendous  porticos  to  some  hanging 
garden  of  the  air. 

"When  I  was  a  little  chap  I  always 
thought  the  Land  of  Heart's  Desire  lay  back 
of  that,"  said  TrafFord. 

Meraud,  with  her  breath  caught  in  as  if  to 
speak,  gave  him  a  quick  look  and  was  silent. 
36 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"I  seemed  to  remember  it,"  he  continued. 
"I  was  always  wondering  when  I  should  get 
back  there.  I  wasn't  at  all  a  sentimental 
kid,  but  I  had  the  oddest  fits  of  homesickness 
for  that  place.  I  used  to  whip  out  into  a 
storm  if  my  nurse  turned  her  eye  for  a 
second." 

"So  did  I,"  said  Meraud.  She  was  look- 
ing at  him  again,  still  with  that  air  of  wanting 
to  say  something  which  she  had  decided  had 
better  not  be  said. 

"  It's  queer  that  it  shouldn't  have  frightened 
us,"  he  wondered,  apparently  unaware  of  her 
hesitation.  "Children  are  generally  in  an 
awful  funk  about  thunder  and  lightning." 

"You  —  you  seemed  to  —  remember  it?" 
asked  Meraud. 

"Yes,  to  remember  being  awfully  happy 
there,  and  all  that.  It  got  dimmer  as  I  grew 
older — the  feeling,  that  sort  of  nostalgia — but 
1  always  get  a  touch  of  it  again  when  I  watch 
a  storm  like  this." 

"It   is   strange,"   she   said,   musingly,   and 
there  was  still  that  uncertainty  in  her  voice. 
Then  she  glanced  at  him  again.     His  pleas- 
ant eyes  smiled  back  at  her  frankly. 
37 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"It's  strange,  because—  '  she  said,  in  a 
little  rush — "  because  that's  exactly  the  feeling 
I've  always  had  about  it,  too." 

"Oh,  you  dear,  you  dear!"  thought  Traf- 
ford.  "I  knew  it  already  because  your  eyes 
talk  even  when  you  don't  want  them  to, 
but  I'm  ridiculously  glad  that  you  said  it 
with  your  lips,  too!" 

"How  nice  of  you  to  tell  me!"  he  said  to 
her.  "It  makes  watching  the  storm  together 
doubly  delightful.  Perhaps  there  is  some  such 
place — perhaps  we  do  remember  it." 

"  Don't  you  feel  sure  of  it  ?" 

"Do  you?" 

"Yes,  quite  sure — not  of  a  land  back  of  the 
lightning  exactly,  but  of  a  place — a  lovely 
place  —  somewhere.  I  don't  mean  that  I 
know  it  with  my  brain,  but  that  I  feel  it  with 
something  more  than  my  brain." 

"I  should  like  to  feel  it  like  that,"  said 
Trafford,  soberly. 

"Oh,  it  is  true!  It  is  true!"  she  cried, 
impulsively.  "Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a 
forgetting.  All  the  great,  intuitive  minds  have 
felt  it,  all—  She  stopped  abruptly,  with 
that  former  swift  intake  of  the  breath. 
38 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"I  know — I  understand,"  said  the  young 
man,  earnestly.  "Please  don't  be  sorry  that 
you  have  spoken  out  to  me." 

"  How  did  you  know  ?"  she  asked  him, 
smiling. 

"I  felt  it  just  as  you  feel  that — that  other 
feeling,"  he  said,  still  serious.  "Please  don't 
be  sorry." 

"I'm  not,"  she  answered,  simply. 

"I  thank  you,"   said  Traffbrd. 

"Aw,  Miss  Meraud!  Miss  Meraud!"  came 
the  voice  of  Dinky,  and  her  pink-clad  form 
was  seen  hurtling  down  the  hall.  "I  done 
lef  Ba  'Raminta  to  keep  keer  of  Miss  Anice, 
so  don'  be  skeered  'bout  her.  But  Jim,  he 
done  come  up  'most  'stracted,  kase  Phillyder 
done  got  outer  de  stable  -  lot  while  dey  was 
drivin'  in  de  myars  an'  colts,  an'  dey  cyarn' 
nawbordy  ketch  her.  Ef  you  ax  me,  I  knows 
how  as  Miss  Anice  an'  me  kin  bust  weselves 
axin'  you  not  to,  but  youse  a-gwine  stret  out 
in  dis  hyah  stawm  to  whistle  fur  'er.  Now, 
ain't  you  ?"  Ise  done  brung  yo'  buznooz, 
an'  ef  you  lights  out  now,  you'll  mebbe  miss 
de  rain,  scusin'  dee  cloud  don'  tun." 

As  she  delivered  this  harangue,  she  was 
39 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

feverishly  engaged  in  wrapping  her  mistress, 
head  and  all,  in  a  big  white  shawl,  the  "  buz- 
nooz"  in  question. 

"I  should  think  I  were  going  to  whistle 
fur  Jer,"  announced  Meraud.  "My  poor 
Phillida!  I  think  she's  even  worse  than  Miss 
Anice  about  lightning." 

"May  I  come  with  you?"  asked  Trafford; 
and,  on  receiving  no  answer,  joined  her  as  she 
went  quickly  down  the  lawn,  Dinky,  more 
like  a  pink  flag  than  ever,  bringing  up  the 
rear. 

Across  the  grass,  through  ankle^deep  beds 
of  periwinkle,  they  went,  the  wild  wind  volum- 
ing  about  them  and  pelting  them  with  twigs 
and  leaves.  Two  anxious-looking  mulatto 
grooms  raced  along  the  carriage-way  to  their 
right,  while  a  sable  collie  dashed  out  of  the 
shrubbery  a  little  farther  on  and  joined  in 
the  procession. 

"Where  is  she,  Jim?"  asked  Meraud, 
breathlessly,  when  they  reached  the  lawn 
gate. 

"She  down  dyar  in  dee  home  fiel',  Miss 
Meraud,  tyarin'  roun'  like  she  one  cukus 
hawse —  Dyar  she!"  and  he  pointed  eagerly. 
4Q 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Meraud  set  two  fingers  against  her  lips 
and  gave  a  long,  clear  whistle  with  an  odd 
fall  to  it.  The  mare,  a  soot-brown  four- 
year-old,  was  launching  herself  madly  down 
an  opposite  hill.  She  tore  to  the  bottom, 
checked  herself  on  a  farther  rise,  stopped 
stock  -  still,  and  threw  high  her  lovely  Arab 
head.  Meraud  whistled  again  and  was  an- 
swered by  a  sort  of  shriek.  Again  she 
whistled,  more  coaxingly  this  time,  a  soft 
up-and-down,  up-and-down,  soothing,  flute- 
like  note.  The  mare  whinnied,  wheeled, 
stopped,  whinnied  again.  Again  the  whistle. 

"Dyar!"  said  Jim,  on  a  gusty  sigh.     "She 


comin'!" 


And  come  she  did,  on  a  dead,  stretching 
run,  like  a  Derby  winner. 

"Oh,  what  a  beauty!  What  a  stunning 
beauty!"  exclaimed  Traffbrd,  as  the  filly 
swung  into  a  trot  on  nearing  her  mistress, 
and  then,  all  lathered  and  trembling,  dropped 
her  small  muzzle  and  wild,  soft  eyes  against 
Meraud's  breast. 

"She  has  a  right  to  it,"  the  latter  said, 
exultingly.  "She  has  the  blood  of  Revenue 
in  her  veins,  and  her  dam  was  a  clean-bred 
41 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

Arab.  Put  me  up  on  her,  Jim,  and  lead  her 
back.  I'm  tired." 

"But  your  gown!"  ventured  Trafford,  dis- 
mayed for  its  white  delicacy,  and  glancing  at 
the  mare's  sweating  flanks. 

"Oh,  it  washes!"  she  laughed  back  at  him, 
as  Jim  took  her  foot  on  his  yellow  palm.  "  I 
have  dozens  like  it,  just  because  they  do 
wash  so  easily." 

So  they  returned  to  the  house  barely  in 
time  to  escape  the  rain,  which  began  to  fall 
in  big,  dark  blots  on  the  stone  steps  as  they 
mounted. 

Meraud  stopped,  even  there,  to  present  a 
rose  or  two,  from  a  bush  near  by,  to  Phillida 
before  she  kissed  her  on  one  mildly  blinking 
eye  and  sent  her  off  to  the  stables,  a  pink 
bud  ornamenting  the  corner  of  her  mouth. 

Then  came  the  rain  with  a  rush  and  roar 
like  a  "cloud-burst."  The  whole  house  re- 
verberated like  a  drum.  Shrubberies  and 
garden,  hills  and  fields  were  wiped  out,  and 
only  a  great  shaded  sheet  of  silver  gray  was 
swung  before  them. 

"I  must  go  now  to  change  my  frock  and 
see  how  'Ba  'Raminta'  has  taken  care  of 
42 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

Anice,"  said  Meraud.  "Then  I'll  come  back 
again.  You  must  wander  about  and  amuse 
yourself  as  you  can — or,  no,  I'll  send  some 
one  to  take  you  to  the  South  Chamber  and 
you  can  get  comfortable  while  I'm  gone." 


IV 


IT  was  no  other  than  the  versatile  Dinky, 
leading  Ba  'Raminta  by  the  hand,  who 
came,  five  minutes  later,  to  show  him  to  his 
room.  Ba  'Raminta  cast  her  sorcery  over 
him  at  once.  She  was  like  a  little,  brown, 
oblong  fruit,  glistening  with  health  and  sum- 
mertime. Her  rosy-brown  wool  grew  in 
tight  little  knots  over  her  ball-like  noddle, 
and  her  bandy  legs  rose  from  scarlet  socks. 
She  wore  a  creation  of  tartan  calico  with  a 
yellow  muslin  collar,  stiffly  starched,  and  in 
one  of  her  miniature  fists  was  clutched  a  stick 
of  horehound  candy. 

"What  a  duck!"  said  Trafford.  "What's 
your  name,  duck  ?" 

"You  say  howdy  to  de  gen'l'man,  dis 
minnit,  Ba  'R'minta!"  admonished  Dinky, 
with  a  shove. 

"Ain*  no  duck,"  said  the  infant,  sullenly, 
and  put  half  the  stick  of  horehound  in  her 
44 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

mouth.  Dinky  gave  her  another  shove  that 
dislodged  it,  wet  and  glistening,  and  warned, 
shrilly: 

"  You  say  howdy  like  I  tell  you,  or  I'll  give 
you  what  Paddy  guv  de  drum!" 

Ba  'Raminta  turned  globular,  blue-rimmed 
black  eyes  upon  her  as  if  to  ascertain  the 
truth  of  this  statement,  and  then  thrust  for- 
ward her  left  hand,  horehound  stick  and  all, 
to  Trafford. 

"Don*  you  tech  it,  suh!"  shrilled  Dinky. 
"  You'll  sticky  yo'se'f  all  up.  Ef — you — don' 
— say — howdy — right,"  proceeded  she,  whirl- 
ing Ba  'Raminta  about  like  a  teetotum,  "I 
gwine  do  like  I  say — right  hyuh." 

"Howdy!"  exploded  the  pickaninny,  ex- 
tending her  right  hand  this  time,  and  then 
proceeded  to  cork  herself  tightly  with  the 
horehound  candy. 

"Dat's  right!"  crowed  Dinky.  "Now  you 
go  'long  in  front,  and  'have  yo'se'f,  you  hyuh  ? 
Dis  way,  suh,  please,  suh." 

"Will  you  kindly  tell  me,"  asked  Traffbrd, 
as  he  followed  her  down  the  twisting  corridors 
to  the  South  Chamber,  "if  that"— he  indi- 
cated Ba  'Raminta — "is  the  person  who  was 
45 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

'keeping    care'    of  Miss    Mayo    during    the 
storm  ?" 

"  Durin'  of  de  stawm,  suh  ?  Laws !  Yes- 
suh.  Dat  chile  got  mo'  sense  dan  a  red  fawx. 
She  kin  keep  keer  of  three  cows  at  a  time, 
let  'lone  Miss  Anice — when  she  ain  buss- 
haded"  she  ended,  mysteriously. 

She  supplied  Trafford  with  a  bath-tub, 
some  cold  pump-water,  many  towels,  and 
piles  of  "Marse  Tom's  things,"  which  latter, 
upon  examination,  he  found  fitted  him,  and 
then  left  him,  carrying  his  boots,  which  she 
had  helped  him  off  with  in  spite  of  his  prot- 
estations, driving  Ba  'Raminta  before  her, 
and  adjuring  him  to  "tek  good  care  of  hissef." 

The  South  Chamber  was  panelled  and 
painted  white  like  the  rest  of  the  house,  and 
had  four  dormer-windows  with  deep  sills. 
One  of  these  had  been  supplied  with  a  slab 
of  marble  and  ingeniously  turned  into  a 
wash-hand  stand.  There  was  a  plain  little 
Empire  bed  of  mahogany,  some  stiff  Empire 
chairs,  and  two  spacious  cupboards  on  either 
side  of  the  door,  while  a  big  "half -way- 
house"  arm-chair,  covered  with  striped  chintz, 
stood  near  the  fireplace. 
46 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"  I'm  glad  they  didn't  put  me  in  the  'guest- 
chamber,'  as  dear  old  Price  did,"  thought 
Trafford.  "What  a  jolly  little  room!"  He 
proceeded  to  inspect  it  further,  while  busily 
employed  with  two  of  Tom's  hair -brushes, 
and  decided  that  its  chief  charm  lay  in  a 
water  -  color  drawing  that  hung  over  the 
mantel-piece.  It  was  yellow  with  age,  and 
somewhat  puckered  in  its  oval  frame  of 
much-varnished  pine-cones,  and  represented 
an  ancient  dame  of  the  late  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, in  a  green  coat  and  white  mutch,  teach- 
ing a  short-jacketed  urchin  to  read  from  an 
open  book.  Underneath,  in  a  curious,  lace- 
like  old  handwriting  in  India -ink,  ran  this 
legend : 

"These  three  children  Milcah  bore. 
'Milk  a  bore,'  child!  Impossible! 
These  three  children  Milcah  bare. 
Ah,  'milk  a  bear.'  So  they  might;  continue." 

In  one  corner,  in  the  same  handwriting, 
was  signed  the  name  of  the  artist— "Judith 
Nelson  Gordon." 

TrafFord  bent  over  with  laughter. 

"Oh,  dearest  Madam  Judith  Nelson  Gor- 
47 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

don,"  he  exclaimed,  addressing  the  picture, 
"how  glad  I  am  that  you  are  'kin  to  me!" 

Then,  having  repossessed  himself  of  his 
boots,  which  Dinky  thumped  in  at  the  door, 
he  proceeded  to  find  his  way  down  -  stairs 
again,  through  the  various  winding  passage- 
ways and  up  and  down  the  confusing  little 
stairs. 

In  the  mean  time,  Anice,  who  in  Dinky's 
absence  was  hooking  up  Meraud's  tea-gown 
of  the  fine-pleated  mull  that  she  loved,  ad- 
monished her  gently: 

"Meraud,  darling,"  said  she,  "since  I've 
got  my  *  storm  headache'  and  you  have  a  long 
afternoon  before  you  of  tete-a-tete,  be  con- 
siderate of  that  youth." 

"My  dear  Anice!"  said  her  friend. 

"My  dear  Meraud!"  mimicked  Anice. 

"I  won't  pretend  to  misunderstand  you," 
Meraud  answered,  "but  it's  such  utter  non- 
sense. Why,  he  is  just  a  nice,  intelligent, 
pleasant  boy — much  younger  than  I  am." 

"He  strikes  me  as  a  very  precocious  boy." 

"What  a  horrid  word!  I  do  hate  that 
word,  Anice.  It's  just  because  there's  noth- 
ing precocious  about  him  that  I  like  him. 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

He's  so  fresh  and  keen  and  alive,  so  con- 
tented to  be  young  and  have  one  think  him 
young." 

"I  think,"  remarked  Anice,  astutely,  "that 
he's  rather  like  you  in  one  thing.  I  think  he 
looks  younger  than  he  is." 

"  Why,  how  old  do  you  think  he  looks  ?" 

"About  nine-and-twenty — and  I  think  he's 
probably  thirty  three  or  four.  You  look 
younger  than  he  does,  for  that  matter,  but 
then  you're  a  white  witch." 

She  gave  the  clear  neck,  about  which  she 
had  been  drawing  the  last  folds,  a  little  pat 
and  kiss  of  final  approval  as  she  finished 
speaking. 

"I  never  heard  of  a  white  wizard,"  Meraud 
said,  laughing,  "but  I  suppose  he  must  be 
that,  according  to  your  theory.  At  all  events, 
he's  only  a  dear,  nice  boy  to  me,  and  I 
like  him,  and  I'm  going  to  be  very  nice  to 
him." 

"And  considerate?" 

"Dear  me!  How  very  foolish  a  devoted 
friend  can  make  one  feel!  One  would  think 
I  were  Semiramis  and  Helen  rolled  into  one, 
to  hear  you,  Anice!" 

49 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"You're  begging  the  question  —  I  know 
you,"  said  Anice,  astutely. 

Meraud  stood  silent  for  a  moment  or  two, 
drawing  the  soft  web  of  a  belt  of  old  Persian 
silver-work  through  her  hand.  Then  she 
turned  and  clasped  it  into  place  just  under 
her  small,  girlish  breast. 

"  Do  you  remember  Billycock  ?"  she  asked, 
abruptly. 

"Your  black  hunter?" 

"Yes.  Well,  there's  something  about 
young  Trafford  that  reminds  me  exactly  of 
Billycock." 

"Now  I  know  he  is  in  great  favor,"  smiled 
Anice. 

"He  has  just  that  clean,  lean,  alert,  finished 
look,"  Meraud  proceeded,  "and  he  has  just 
that  same  way  of  turning  his  head  when  he 
looks  at  you.  Billycock  never  moved  his 
eyes,  he  just  turned  his  whole  head  and  gave 
you  a  straight,  steady  gaze." 

"Yes,  I  noticed  the  likeness  of  the  steady 
gaze,"  said  Anice,  dryly. 

"  I  must  say  I  do  like  clean  ankles  in  a  man 
just  as  I  like  clean  pasterns  in  a  horse,"  con- 
tinued her  friend,  not  noticing  this  remark. 
50 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Dearest  child!  It's  too  funny  to  hear 
horsy  expressions  coming  from  you  in  that 
angel-like  garment.  Besides,  you  haven't  seen 
his  ankles.  He  had  on  riding-boots." 

"But  I  noticed  his  hands.  I  always  notice 
hands  before  faces,  I  think,  and  his  ankles 
must  match  them — -they  always  do.  He  has 
nice  hands,  long  and  thin  and  slender." 

"His  head's  too  small,"  said  Anice. 

"I  like  a  small  head  in  a  man,  just  as  I  do 
in  a  horse." 

"And  it's  too  dark  and  sleek,"  pursued 
Anice,  unkindly. 

"Just  like  Billycock's!"  said  the  other, 
triumphantly.  "Would  you  like  it  big  and 
fair  and  fuzzy  ?" 

And  then  they  both  laughed  together  at 
their  own  childishness. 

"  Here,  put  on  your  pearls  and  go  your  own 
way  as  usual,"  said  Anice,  finally,  slipping  the 
old-fashioned  necklace  of  seed-pearls  about 
the  white  throat,  and  snapping  it  into  place 
a  little  viciously.  "But  if  he  gets  very  un- 
happy and  makes  you  very  unhappy  for  him, 
don't  come  to  me  for  sympathy." 

"I  won't,"  said  Meraud,  "I  promise  you. 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

Where's  that  white  rose   I   brought   up  this 
morning  ?" 

"  Oh,  if  you're  going  to  wear  a  white  rose- 
breathed  Anice. 

"Don't  be  utterly  absurd,  Anice.  Where 
is  it  ?" 

"Here,"  said  Miss  Mayo,  resignedly. 

Meraud  pinned  it  close  against  the  coil  of 
her  soft  hair,  and  then  gathered  up  her  gown 
to  go. 

"You  know  that  I  always  like  a  rose  in  my 
hair,  when  I'm  here,"  she  remarked,  loftily. 
"It  suits  the  house." 

"Oh,  the  house—"  said  Anice,  and  her  tone 
was  equivocal;  but  Meraud  had  just  closed 
the  door  and  did  not  hear  her. 

She  found  Trafford  in  the  middle  hall 
gazing  up  at  the  portrait  of  a  beautiful,  dark- 
haired  woman  with  strange,  Oriental  eyes 
and  a  skin  like  gold.  The  painting  was 
prim  and  stiff,  but  the  wild  loveliness  of  the 
subject  glowed  through  and  dominated  it. 

"What  a  wonderful-looking  creature!  Who 
was  she  ?"  asked  the  young  man. 

"One  of  the  many  beautiful  'Byrds  of 
52 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

Virginia,'  as  an  old  punster  put  it,"  said 
Meraud.  "That's  really  a  Lely.  Do  you 
see  those  two  slashes  in  her  throat  and 
breast  ?" 

"Yes  —  I  was  wondering  how  they  came 
there." 

"Tarleton  and  his  men  were  quartered 
here  during  the  Revolution,  and  a  soldier  did 
that  with  his  bayonet — so  Uncle  Chapman, 
my  great-grandfather's  old  butler,  told  my 
mother  when  she  was  a  little  girl.  You 
seem  to  like  the  atmosphere  of  the  place,  so 
I  tell  you  these  old  stories,"  she  ended, 
quaintly. 

Traffbrd  looked  from  the  portrait  to  her. 
She  was  like  a  little  Tanagra  figure,  he 
thought,  in  all  those  clinging,  long,  white 
folds,  and  again  that  queer  tenderness  tight- 
ened his  throat. 

"I  simply  love  it,"  he  said,  bluntly,  and 
she  liked  the  bluntness,  it  was  so  evidently 
sincere.  "Strange,"  he  went  on,  "the  oval 
of  the  face  is  just  yours — but  how  totally 
different  in  every  other  way!" 

"Yes,  it  is  like;  I've  noticed  that  my- 
self." 

53 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"It's  amazing,"  he  insisted.  "She  is  so 
Eastern  and  dark  and  towering,  and  you — 

"I'm  certainly  not  towering,"  she  laughed. 
As  she  stood  beside  him  her  head  was  on  a 
level  with  his  shoulder. 

" '  Just  as  high  as  my  heart,  and  her  hair 
shall  be  the  color  it  pleases  God,'"  thought 
Trafford,  and  a  sort  of  pang  went  through 
him  at  the  mere  thought.  "The  color  of 
that  hair  must  please  God,"  he  wound  up  his 
reflections,  boyishly;  "it's  downright  innocent- 
looking  hair,  if  one  could  use  such  a  term." 

"Shall  we  prowl  a  little?"  suggested  Me- 
raud.  "I'll  show  you  some  of  those  papers 
now  if  you  like." 

"I  should — immensely,"  he  said,  but  with 
a  lack  of  the  eagerness  that  had  been  in  his 
morning  voice. 

Meraud  noticed  it.     "If  you  are  tired- 
she  began;  but  he  hastened  to  assure  her  of 
the  contrary. 

"It's  an  odd  place  to  keep  them  in,"  she 
told  him,  as  they  went  into  the  next  hall  at 
the  back  of  the  house,  "  but  we  Southerners 
do  keep  things  in  odd  places.  It  ought  to 
be  a  fire-proof  safe,  I  know,  but — "  And  she 
54 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

stopped  and  pointed  to  an  old  cabinet-organ 
which  filled  one  side  of  the  panelling  from 
floor  to  ceiling. 

"I  have  the  key,"  she  went  on.  "I  brought 
it  down  with  me  because  I  thought  you'd 
like  to  see  them  now,  perhaps — some  of  them, 
at  least.  There  are  others  in  'the  study,'  as 
the  library  used  to  be  called." 

And  then  she  showed  him  how  to  open  the 
carved  doors,  with  their  faded  curtains  of 
green  taffeta,  and  he  saw  bundles  of  yellow 
letters,  rolls  of  parchment,  manuscript  books 
thrust  pell-mell  upon  the  shelves  that  ran 
along  the  right  side  of  the  queer  old  instru- 
ment. 

"Why — here  is  Mr.  Cabell's  appointment 
as  minister  to  England,"  he  exclaimed,  as- 
tonished, taking  the  ornate  parchment,  with 
its  seal  and  ribbon,  in  his  hand  and  turning 
it  curiously  to  the  light.  "Is  it  quite  safe, 
really,  to — to —  I  don't  mean  to  be  officious," 
he  ended. 

"You're    not,"    she    assured    him.     "You 

are  perfectly  right,   I  suppose.     But  this  is 

such  a  quiet  old  place — such  a  dream  valley. 

Realities,  pleasant   and    unpleasant,  seem   to 

55 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

pass  it  by.  Even  the  war  passed  it  by.  I've 
never  heard  of  thieves,  or  burglars,  or  any- 
thing of  the  sort  here — Unbereufen!"  And 
she  laughed  and  rapped  with  her  knuckles 
under  the  key-board  of  the  organ. 

Trafford  closed  the  doors  and  handed  her 
back  the  key,  delighted. 

"To  think  that  you'll  really  allow  me  to 
examine  those  treasures  at  my  leisure,  some- 
time!" he  said,  gratefully.  "I  really  don't 
know  how  to  thank  you." 

"I'm  glad  you  don't,"  she  smiled.  "I 
hate  being  thanked." 

And  then  they  went  back  to  the  drawing- 
room  to  see  what  the  rain  had  been  doing 
to  lawn  and  garden. 

On  her  way  down-stairs  to  dinner,  some 
time  later,  Anice  heard  gay  and  intermingled 
peals  of  laughter. 

"Good  child,  good  child,"  thought  she, 
tenderly,  "she's  keeping  him  amused.  She's 
not  giving  him  a  chance  to  feel  romantic. 
They  do  get  so  romantic  about  Meraud," 
and  she  sighed,  for  to  be  the  recipient  of 
many  similar  confidences,  if  an  honor,  is 
56 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

somewhat  monotonous,  even  to  the  most  de- 
voted of  friends. 

Then  she  started  and  listened  anxiously, 
hurrying  her  descent,  as  the  chords  of  a 
guitar,  softly  struck,  fell  on  her  ear.  Was 
she  going  to  spoil  all  by  singing  some  of  those 
wistful,  Old-World  songs,  in  that  thrilling, 
starry  voice  of  hers  ?  But  no,  these  are  the 
words,  set  to  a  weird,  jigging  air,  that  greeted 
her  on  her  entrance  into  the  drawing-room: 

"Sister,  I  comin'  t'  see  you  t'-night, 

An'  I  want  you-all  tuh  treat  me  right; 

Make  dat  coffee  good  and  strong, 

An'  a-fling  dem  ashes  all  aroun'! 

Keep-a-humble,  my  sister, 

De  bells  done  ring; 
Keep-a-humble,  my  sister, 
De  bells  done  ring! 

"One  ole  man  come  a-ridin'  by, 
I  sez,  'Ole  man,  is  yo'  hawse  gwine  die?' 
Ef  he  die  I'll  tan  he  skin, 
An'  ef  he  live  I'll  ride  him  agin  ! 
Keep-a-humble,  my  sister,  etc. 

"Two  clean  sheets  cyarn'  dirty  each  urrer, 
AH  marsaslam's  gwine  shake-dee-tail  togerrer — " 

57 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

Meraud  flung  aside  the  guitar  as  the  door 
opened,  and  Traffbrd  asked,  eagerly: 

"Do  say  that  last  line  over  to  me  in  plain 
English." 

"'All  master's  lambs  are  going  to  shake 
their  tails  together,'"  repeated  Meraud,  slow- 
ly. "  But  here  is  Anice.  She  sings  that  song 
much  better  than  I  do  —  she  taught  it  to 
me." 

At  this  point,  however,  Chapman,  who  had 
"  stepped  back "  from  Green  Springs,  said 
that  dinner  was  "radey,"  and  all  three  went 
in  together. 


DURING  the  next  week  Trafford  rode 
over  several  times  to  study  the  manu- 
scripts and  correspondence  so  generously  of- 
fered him.  He  was  as  pleasant,  simple,  and 
light  -  hearted  as  had  been  Meraud's  first 
impression  of  him,  and  very  studious,  she 
decided,  as  she  caught  glimpses  of  the  head, 
like  Billycock's,  bent,  hour  after  hour,  over 
rolls  of  parchment  and  packets  of  letters, 
on  her  way  from  garden  to  house  and  house 
to  garden.  Even  Anice  relented  and  ad- 
mitted that  it  was  "very  nice  to  have  a  man 
about  the  place  again."  She  had  decided 
finally  that  there  was  nothing  obtrusively 
"  romantic  "  in  his  manner  to  Meraud,  and 
that,  after  all,  he  was  old  enough  to  "  keep 
keer  "  of  himself,  as  Dinky  would  have  said. 
Once  or  twice  he  stopped  to  lunch,  but  gen- 
erally arrived  about  three  o'clock  in  the  af- 
ternoon and  rode  back  at  six. 
59 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"I've  been  thinking,"  said  Meraud,  one 
morning  at  breakfast,  "that  it's  rather  a 
shame  to  let  that  poor  boy  pelt  back  and 
forth  in  this  broiling  weather,  twelves  miles 
every  day.  Would  you  mind  if  I  asked  him 
to  stop  with  us  here  at  Kingsweather  for  a 
fortnight  ?" 

"Why,  no,"  answered  Anice,  "I  think  I'd 
like  it.  If  '  a  difference  of  taste  in  the  matter 
of  jokes  is  a  great  strain  upon  the  affections,' 
as  George  Eliot  stated,  then  I'm  sure  that  a 
likeness  in  the  same  matter  is  a  strong  bond. 
He  has  a  very  nice  sense  of  humor,  indeed, 
your  young  friend." 

"Yes,  he  would  be  a  dear  to  'play  with/ 
I  think,"  mused  Meraud.  "I'd  like  to  play 
a  little  sometimes,"  she  added,  in  a  tone  that 
struck  Anice  as  wistful. 

She  put  her  hand  over  the  slim  ringers  that 
lay  rather  listlessly  along  the  chair-arm. 

"Poor  dear,"  she  said,  "you  look  a  little 
tired.  You  don't  feel  ill,  do  you  ?" 

"No,"  Meraud  answered,  still  listless. 
"It's  the  hot  weather,  I  think." 

"Well,  write  to  your  playmate  and  ask 
him  to  come  at  once.  I'm  afraid  Doctor 
60 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

Dundas  made  a  mistake  in  shutting  you  up 
so  closely  here,  with  just  me." 

'Just   me'   will   please   not  to  talk   non- 
sense," smiled  Meraud. 

"  But  to  cut  off  your  correspondence,  all 
your  other  friends — everything — for  so  many 
months." 

"You  are  like  *  Parole,'"  said  Meraud,  with 
one  of  the  horsy  expressions  that  came  so 
oddly  from  her,  "the  Parole  of  friends— 
*  first  and  no  second.'  As  for  letters,  and  be- 
ing cut  off  from  everything,  it's  a  relief.  I 
like  being  on  a  little  island  of  peace,  as  it 
were,  with  'just  you."! 

"And  a  'playmate'—" 

"And  a  playmate — for  two  weeks  or  so." 

"Then  run  and  write  to  him — run!"  said 
Anice,  and  Meraud  obediently  went  to  indite 
the  following  letter: 

"My  DEAR  MR.  TRAFFORD, — It  seems  a  great 
shame  that  you  should  have  to  do  so  much  posting 
back  and  forth  in  the  heat  of  the  day  and  a  Virginia 
June.  Why  shouldn't  you  come  and  stop  with  us 
quietly  at  Kingsweather  for  two  or  three  weeks  ? 
We  should  be  very  glad  to  have  you,  and  you 
could  study  at  your  leisure,  during  the  cool,  morn- 
61 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

ing  hours,  instead  of  the  hottest  part  of  the  after- 
noon. Yours  sincerely, 

"  MERAUD  CABELL." 

Traffbrd  accepted  this  invitation  with  feel- 
ings that  he  did  not  care  to  analyze.  He  was 
bent  on  regarding  the  whole  situation  just 
then,  with  that  myopic  vision  which  blurs 
the  foreground  and  enhances  the  beauty  of 
the  horizon.  "I  shall  just  take  the  present 
moment  in  both  hands  and  live  it  hard,"  he 
told  himself,  and  some  old,  half-forgotten 
lines  came  back  to  him  — -'Men  mar  the 
beauty  of  their  dreams,  tracing  their  source 
too  well.'  "I  sha'n't  trace  anything.  I 
sha'n't  dissect  myself,  or  the  situation,  or 
anything,"  he  thought,  doggedly.  "My  part 
for  the  present  is  to  live  two  weeks  as  beauti- 
fully as  I  can,  in  that  beautiful  old  place 
with — "  But  he  whipped  off  the  end  of  his 
thought  as  one  whips  off  a  leaf  at  the  end  of 
a  twig  gathered  for  other  purposes  than 
beauty. 

Yet,  when  he  was  packing  his  things  that 
afternoon,   the   uncalled-for,  busybody   Lilli- 
putians  of  doubt   began  to  tease   him  with 
their  tightening  threads. 
62 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Am  I  a  mad  fool  to  go,  after  all?"  he 
asked  himself.  "Am  I  about  to  'make  a 
little  hell  for  myself,'  like  Shelley,  to  wander 
about  in  all  the  rest  of  my  days  ?"  And 
again  the  old  lines  came  back  to  him.  "  Con- 
found it!  I  won't  mar  the  beauty  of  my 
dreams.  I  won't — I  won't."  And  he  set 
his  teeth  literally,  and  went  on  with  his  pack- 
ing. 

For  though  he  did  not  look  or  act  the  part, 
Trafford  was  a  dreamer.  All  his  life — and 
it  had  been  a  very  active  one,  for  he  had 
scampered  over  most  of  the  habitable  globe 
—he  had  dreamed  dreams,  strange  and  fair 
and  wholly  enthralling  dreams,  that  for  the 
most  part  made  his  fellow-creatures — women 
at  least — seem  the  shadows  and  themselves 
the  substance. 

He  was  musing  on  this  quality  in  himself 
now,  as  he  prosaically  put  away  handker- 
chiefs and  folded  shirts,  and  presently  he 
stopped,  and,  taking  up  a  little,  gray  book 
from  a  table  near  his  bed,  began  to  turn  the 
leaves  mechanically. 

It  has  been  said  that  he  did  not  care  par- 
ticularly for  modern  poetry,  and  he  did  not, 
63 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

but  this  tale  in  verse  of  William  Watson, 
The  Prince's  Quest,  had  always  held  him, 
frankly  because  of  its  likeness  to  the  dream 
that  possessed  his  own  soul.  He  stood  now 
turning  the  pages  nervously  and  reading  lines 
here  and  there: 

"For  evermore  thereafter  he  did  seem 
To  see  that  royal  maiden  of  his  dream, 

And  much  he  marvelled  where  that  land  might  be. 

Well  knowing  in  his  heart  that  such  like  dreams 

Come  not  in  idleness,  but  evermore 

Are  Fate's  veiled  heralds  that  Jo  fly  before 

Their  mighty  Master  as  he  journeyeth, 

And  sing  strange  songs  of  life  and  love  and  death." 

He  caught  his  breath  impatiently,  tossed 
the  book  from  him,  picked  it  up  again,  and 
went  on  reading: 

"And  then  he  told  her  how  the  city's  Queen 
Did  pass  before  him  like  a  breathing  flower, 
That  he  had  loved  her  image  from  that  hour. 

And  sure  am  /..... 

That  somewhere  in  this  world  so  wide  and  vast 

Lieth  the  land  mine  eyes  have  inly  seen. 

64 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

Something,  he  knew  not  what,  within  his  heart 
Rose  like  a  faint  heard  voice  and  said,  'Depart 
From   hence   and  follow  where   thy  dream   shall 
lead.1 ' 

He  did  not  toss  the  little  volume  from  him 
this  time,  but  closed  it  gently,  and  stood 
holding  it  between  both  hands,  while  his  eyes, 
gazing  far  out  at  window,  rested  unseeing  on 
the  azure  ramparts  of  the  Blue  Ridge. 

And  it  will  be  gathered  that  he  was  not 
conceited,  whatever  his  other  faults  might  be, 
for,  as  he  stood  there,  he  was  facing  the  fact 
that  he  might  love  Meraud  Cabell,  and  that 
she  would  most  probably,  almost  certainly, 
not  return  his  love. 

It  was  after  seven  o'clock  when  he  entered 
the  wood  on  the  edge  of  the  Kingsweather 
estate,  and  as  he  plunged  at  a  canter  into 
its  dank,  pungent  coolness,  he  saw  Meraud, 
on  Phillida,  coming  towards  him.  She  did 
not  see  him  at  first,  for  she  was  riding 
with  loose  reins,  resting  carelessly  as  in  a 
chair,  and  gazing  down  at  the  road  be- 
neath her. 

65 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Ah,  there  you  are!"  she  said,  straighten- 
ing herself,  as  he  came  up.  "I  thought  I 
should  meet  you  just  about  here,  so  I  came 
without  a  groom.  Anice  hates  me  to  ride 
alone,  but  I  love  it  so." 

"Is  it  quite  prudent—        He  hesitated. 

"One  gets  so  tired  of  being  caged — even  in 
love  and  flowers,"  she  sighed,  and  he  saw 
that  she  was  very  pale,  but  with  that  glowing, 
dazzling  pallor  that  he  loved. 

"Riding  means  a  great  deal  to  you,  doesn't 
it  ?"  he  asked. 

"I'm  always  happy  on  a  horse — this  horse 
especially." 

She  ran  a  loving  hand  down  the  shining 
crest  before  her,  and  the  mare  bent  her  neck 
and  purred  through  her  nostrils. 

"And  you  hunt  in  winter?" 

"I  used  to,  but  I  don't  care  for  'drags,' 
and  one  day,  when  we  viewed  the  fox,  I 
seemed  to  feel  suddenly  as  if  I  were  in  his 
little,  red,  terrified  skin,  and — I  didn't  care 
about  hunting  any  more.  Besides —  She 
hesitated  a  moment  and  then  went  on  in  a 
practical  voice:  "I  might  as  well  tell  you 
now,  because  such  things  always  crop  up 
66 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

sooner  or  later,  and  I  don't  want  you  to  think 
of  me  as  an  invalid.  My  heart  has  been 
behaving  rather  shabbily  of  late." 

"Your  heart  ?"  said  Traffbrd,  and  his  own 
stood  still. 

"Don't  look  so  sorry — it's  really  nothing 
serious,"  she  assured  him.  "A  very  unpo- 
etical  result  of  influenza,  but  just  at  present 
I'm  forbidden  to  jump  Phillida,  and  that 
sort  of  thing.  Please  don't  think  of  it  again. 
I  only  wanted  to  tell  you  myself,  and  not  have 
you  discover  it  as  some  tragic  mystery." 

"I  —  I  am  glad  it  is  not  serious,"  said 
Trafford,  baldly. 

They  were  riding  neck  and  neck  now, 
through  the  twilit  wood,  and  the  spongy, 
fungus-scented  air  enveloped  them  with  its 
faint  hint  of  reminiscence.  All  at  once  it 
seemed  to  him  that  they  had  ridden  so  be- 
fore, through  woods  like  these,  through  just 
such  wandering,  aromatic  airs.  He  saw  the 
slim,  white-clad  figure  at  his  side  as  some- 
thing strangely  familiar ;  even  the  knot  of 
white  phlox  in  her  belt  was  part  of  it  all — 
had  bloomed  there  before. 

"Do  you  ever  feel,"  she  said,  turning  sud- 
e  67 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

denly  to  him,  "as  though  something  had 
happened  before  —  just  the  same  thing,  in 
just  the  same  way  ?" 

He  changed  color,  but  she  did  not  notice 
it  in  the  waning  light. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  with  that  baldness 
which  he  could  not  remedy,  somehow. 

"It  is  odd,"  she  said,  musingly.  "I  won- 
der if  it  is  a  sort  of  remembering  ?" 

"You  really  do  believe  in  reincarnation, 
and — and  all  that  ?"  blurted  Trafford. 

"I  was  born  believing  it,"  she  said.  "I 
remember,  when  I  was  only  seventeen,  mark- 
ing some  pages  of  Lessing  with  a  red  pencil, 
because  I  found  that  he  thought  so  too." 

"And  you  think  that  we  have  all  lived 
before — often — and  shall  live  again — on  this 
earth  ?" 

"Until  we  conquer  once  for  all,"  she  smiled 
at  him;  "until  we  reach  the  end  of  that 
'ancient,  narrow  path,  stretching  far  away, 
as  hard  to  tread  as  the  edge  of  a  razor."' 

"You  have  read  a  great  deal,  haven't 
you  ?"  the  young  man  asked,  rather  gloomily. 

"Oh,  it  didn't  come  from  reading,"  she 
assured  him,  gayly.  "I  only  read  to  under- 
68 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

score  my  own  convictions,  as  it  were.  You 
mustn't  get  depressed,  and  think  you're  go- 
ing to  be  housed  for  two  weeks  with  a  blue- 
stocking." 

"I  really  wasn't  thinking  any  such  trivial 
thing,"  Trafford  protested.  "One  feels  that 
you're  very  wise,  somehow — but  not  like  a 
college  professor,"  -  he  smiled  too,  now— 
"like  a  very  wise  child,  perhaps." 

"I,  a  child,  very  old,  over  waves,  toward 
the  house  of  Maturity,  the  land  of  migra- 
tions, look  afar.'  Do  you  remember  those 
lines  of  Walt  Whitman  ?  He  felt  it  too,  you 
see." 

"  But  where,  then,  did  we  begin  —  and 
how  ?" 

"'As  from  a  glowing  fire,  kindred  sparkles 
come  forth  thousandfold,  so  from  the  Eter- 
nal, manifold  beings  are  born  and  return 
also,"'  she  quoted  in  a  dreamy  voice,  the 
mystic  look  veiling  her  eyes.  Then  she 
laughed  suddenly.  "All  my  conversation 
seems  to  be  in  quotation-marks  this  after- 
noon," she  said,  "but  one  cannot  say  those 
things  as  well  as  they  have  been  said  thou- 
sands of  years  ago." 

69 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

'"Thousands  of  years  ago,'"  repeated 
Traffbrd,  "and  here  I  am  listening  to  them, 
and  you  saying  them,  as  though  they  had 
been  written  yesterday.  It  is  very  wonder- 
ful, somehow."  Her  mood  had  caught  him, 
and  he  wanted  to  know  more  of  that  inner 
self  of  hers  which  he  felt  to  be  even  more 
beautiful  than  its  delicate  shell. 

"Do  you  know  the  Bhagavad  Gita,  the 
Hindu  'Song  Celestial*  ?"  she  asked,  as  if  di- 
vining his  thought. 

"I  read  some  of  it  once  —  long  ago  —  I 
don't  remember  it  clearly,"  he  admitted. 

"I  think  I  love  that  the  best  of  all  those 
writings.  It  has  in  it  what  seems  to  me 
the  greatest  verse  in  any  scripture." 

"  May  I  hear  it  ?"  he  asked,  shyly. 

"It  is  this:  Krishna  the  Avatar,  the  god- 
man  of  the  Hindus,  is  speaking  to  Arjuna 
the  Warrior  Prince,  and  he  says:  'However 
men  approach  me,  even  so  do  I  accept  them, 
for  the  path  men  take  from  every  side  is 
mine/" 

"I  see,"  said  TrafFord.  "Yes,  that  is 
very  great." 

"It  appeals  to  me,  I  suppose,  because  I 
70 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

feel  that  more  than  anything — that  men  are 
approaching  God  by  all  the  different  creeds 
and  sects — just  that.  I  haven't  any  fixed 
creed  of  my  own,  unless  you  could  call  that 
a  creed." 

"  It  seems  to  me  the  most  beautiful  of  all," 
said  Trafford.  "But  to  be  sure — of—  '  he 
hesitated,  "of — just  that — is  a  gift  of  nature, 
I  think,  like  music  or  poetry." 

"Yes,  one  can't  reason  about  it  or  prove 
it,"  she  said.  "At  least  I  do  not  think  so, 
though  many  people,  even  Mystics,  do  think 
so.  God  has  to  be  *  apprehended  with  the 
flower  of  the  mind.'  He  cannot  be  logically 
deducted,  so  as  to  be  proved  to  another  who 
doesn't  apprehend  Him.  Ah —  She  broke 
off  and  pointed  with  her  riding-crop.  "  There 
is  your  'Land  of  Heart's  Desire'  again,  at  the 
end  of  the  wood.  But  it  is  only  *  heat  light- 
ning' this  time — a  storm  very  far  away." 

"A  storm  very  far  away,"3  Trafford  re- 
peated in  his  thought,  and  the  words  seemed 
to  him  weighted  with  occult  meaning,  to  have 
been  uttered  before  in  that  past  which  he  felt 
to  be  reclaiming  him.  "  The  Land  of  Heart's 
Desire."  Was  it  always  a  storm  that  cast  the 
71 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

wanderer  upon  those  shores — or  drove  him 
from  them  ?  He  said,  aloud,  two  of  the  lines 
that  he  had  been  reading  that  afternoon, 
without  knowing  that  he  did  so: 

"And  sure  am  I 

That  somewhere  in  this  world  so  wide  and  vast 
Lieth  the  land  mine  eyes  have  inly  seen." 

"The  Prince's  Quest!'"  exclaimed  Me- 
raud,  turning  to  him.  "I  used  to  love  that 
— and  believe  it — long  years  ago,"  she  ended, 
rather  sadly.  "That,  and  Love  is  Enough, 
by  William  Morris;  they  are  beautiful  things, 
and  so  little  known." 

"And  you — you  think  now  that  they  never 
come  true  ?  That  one  never  finds  that  land 
of  one's  dreams  ?" 

"Perhaps  one  isn't  meant  to,"  she  said, 
gently;  "perhaps  one  would  be  contented 
to  remain  just  here  on  this  warm  earth  that 
one  loves.  We  have  a  greater  destiny,  I 
think." 

And  all   at  once  she  seemed  to  Traffbrd 
far  removed  from  him — a  clear  figure  shining 
in  the  unfamiliar  ether  of  a  remote  world. 
72 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"I  am  so  human,"  he  said,  humbly.  "It 
seems  so  cold  and  aloof  to  me." 

"/  know,"  she  said  in  her  caressing  voice; 
"/  know — I  am  very  human  too."  And  as 
she  spoke  he  remembered  the  Angel  of 
Hasala,  who  was  created  half  of  snow  and 
half  of  fire. 

"Snow  and  fire,"  he  thought — "snow  and 
fire — she  is  just  that."  And  a  sort  of  in- 
tolerable foreboding  wrung  his  breast. 

But  as  they  rode  out  of  the  wood  into  the 
full  splendor  of  the  sunset  she  spoke  again 
in  a  low,  rapt  voice,  and  he  bent  his  head  to 
listen,  still  thrilling  with  that  nameless  pain: 

"'  Desire  having  come  to  an  end,  liberated 
from  the  pairs  of  opposites  known  as  pleasure 
and  pain,  they  tread,  undeluded,  the  inde- 
tructible  Path.  Nor  doth  the  sun  lighten 
here,  nor  moon,  nor  fire;  having  gone 
thither,  they  return  not;  that  is  my  supreme 
dwelling-place. ": 


VI 


r"PHE  moon  soared  up  that  night  at  Kings- 
•I  weather,  winged  with  clouds,  behind  the 
tangled  trees  of  the  lawn,  like  some  great, 
enchanted,  golden  bird  in  a  sorcerer's  cage. 
The  vistas  of  hedge  and  shrubbery  were 
strangely  magnified  and  lengthened,  and 
filled  with  an  elusive,  wavering  light  as  of 
places  under  the  sea.  Here  and  there,  from 
among  the  darker  masses,  a  fringe-tree  stirred 
palely  its  long,  tremulous  blossoms,  and  the 
rows  of  "lady -lilies"  leading  down  to  the 
garden  became  chalices  of  mystic  fire  in  the 
slant  radiance. 

There  brooded  over  the  old  place  some- 
thing aware  and  withheld  and  stilly  impas- 
sioned; something  that  stirred  the  fancy  and 
the  heart,  and  the  blood,  too,  a  little,  as  at 
the  idea  of  fairy  trumpets  about  to  be  sounded 
for  some  great  revelation. 

In  the  library  Anice  Mayo  was  playing, 
74 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

softly,  a  prelude  of  Bach.  It  sounded  like 
an  earth-bound  angel's  pleadings  against  an 
hour  of  white  magic. 

"We  were  too  serious  this  afternoon," 
said  Meraud,  standing  beside  him  on  the 
porch,  as  when  they  had  watched  the  storm 
together.  "Let  us  go  out  into  the  moon- 
light, and  be  happy,  and  pagan.  It  is  the 
very  night  for  hunting  dryads." 

"I  believe  you  are  one,"  said  TrafFord, 
as  they  went  together  along  the  still-warm 
grass. 

"No,  I  don't  mean  that,"  he  added,  as 
she  touched  inquiringly  the  little  wreath  of 
ivy  that  she  had  twined  in  her  hair  for  din- 
ner. "But  there  is  something  about  you  so 
free  and  woodland  and — 

"And  what?"  she  questioned,  as  he  hesi- 
tated. 

'  *  Eerie,'  *  panic '  almost — in  the  best  sense 
of  the  word,  something  not  quite  mortal,  not 
quite  of  the  working-day  world." 

"Isn't  it  odd  how  one  likes  to  be  told 
things  like  that  ?"  she  said,  with  such  a 
quaint  frankness  that  he  could  not  help 
laughing. 

75 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"I  wonder  why  it  is?"  she  persisted.  "A 
sort  of  illusion  like  the  others,  I  suppose; 
like  that  which  makes  most  Virginians  so 
proud  of  being  descended  from  an  aborigi- 
nal." 

"An  aboriginal  ?" 

"  Pocahontas,  of  course.'* 

"Oh — Pocohontas,"  said  the  young  man, 
and  he  laughed  again. 

"Now,  why  should  it  please  me,"  she  con- 
tinued, "to  be  compared  to  a  dryad?  They 
must  have  been  very  imperfect,  half  vege- 
table creatures  after  all,  and  yet,  it  does 
please  me." 

"It's  the  gracious  idea  of  it,  I  fancy," 
said  Trafford. 

"I  fancy  so,"  she  admitted;  and  as  she 
put  up  both  bare  arms  to  loosen  a  twig  of 
box  that  had  caught  her  hair  in  passing, 
looked  more  like  a  dryad  than  ever.  They 
stood  now  under  an  arch  in  the  great  hedge, 
and  gazed  down  over  the  old  garden,  with 
its  thousands  of  roses  sleeping  their  enchant- 
ed sleep. 

"What  I  love  and  what  I  hate  about  a 
night  like  this,"  she  said,  presently,  "is  that 
76 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

it  confuses  the  present  with  the  past — mixes 
up  my  old  girl  -  self  so  with  my  present 
woman-self,  that  I  do  not  know  whether  I 
woke  up  this  morning  as  eighteen  or  thirty. 
And  it  brings  back  old  dreams  and  old  im- 
aginings and  makes  them  seem  real,  and  the 
real  things  dreams.  Have  you  ever  felt  that  ?" 

"Often,"  said  Trafford,  and  his  heart 
took  a  quicker  beat,  because  he  had  lived 
all  his  life  in  that  world  of  seeming  realities 
and  knew  now  that  she  had  too. 

"I  don't  like  dreaming,"  she  continued, 
a  little  petulantly.  "  One  is  generally  waked 
by  falling  on  the  floor  —  hard."  And  she 
laughed  with  him  at  her  own  injured  tone. 

"But  on  a  night  like  this,"  she  went  mus- 
ing on,  "one  wants  to  go  on  dreaming,  though 
one  knows  how  very  foolish  it  is.  The  earth 
seems  so  warm  and  near  and  friendly,  and 
the  sky  so  austere  and  far  and — and  bleak," 
she  finished  with  a  little  shiver.  "And  yet 
all  that  is  only  another  illusion.  I  am  so 
very  tired  of  illusions."  And  then  she  looked 
at  him  with  the  sweet,  friendly  eyes,  whose 
grayness  he  could  only  divine  in  the  soft 
light,  and  said  in  another  voice: 
77 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"But  you  are  not  an  illusion.  I  am  so 
glad  that  you  could  come.  I  think  Anice  is 
right,  and  that  we've  been  too  much  alone 
this  year,  she  and  I." 

"No,  I  feel  too  really  glad  myself,  for  an 
illusion,"  he  said,  lightly,  but  his  heart  sank 
a  little  at  her  cordial,  mid-day  tone. 

"Let  us  go  and  look  at  the  mountains  from 
the  back  lawn,  and  then  at  the  horizon  from 
the  foot  of  this  lawn,"  she  said,  gathering 
up  her  filmy  skirt  anew,  and  he  followed  her 
through  thickets  of  lilac,  and  althea,  and 
twisted  old  damson-trees  to  the  terraced 
square  at  the  back  of  the  house.  Two  great 
Virginia  junipers  stood  at  each  corner  of  this 
square,  leaning,  as  it  were,  gnarled  elbows 
upon  the  mountain-top  beyond,  and  silently 
gazing  towards  the  farther  valley.  Their 
shadows  slept  black  and  stirless  on  the  short 
grass,  but  beyond  them  a  tangle  of  wild  red 
lilies  kept  their  glow  even  in  the  white  moon- 
beams. 

"Ah,  I  love  the  mountains,  do  you?"  she 

said,  and  then,  as  if  satisfied  of  his  answer, 

went  on:    "I  used  to  fret  against  them  as  a 

girl,    because   they   shut   me   out   from   the 

78 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

great  world  on  the  other  side.     Now  I  love 
them  because  they  shut  me  in  with  peace." 

"Yes,  one  feels  that  you  have  found 
peace,"  hd  said,  and  something  in  his  voice 
stirred  the  sensitive  chord  of  sympathy  that 
was  stretched  so  fine  in  her  heart,  for  she 
turned  and  looked  up  into  his  face,  with  its 
dissatisfied,  down-bent  brows. 

"You  don't  want  peace — not  yet — not  at 
your  age  ?"  she  said,  and  the  inflection  of 
the  sentence  was  a  question,  after  the  South- 
ern fashion. 

"  You  speak  as  if  you  were  the  Ancient  of 
days  and  I  a  little  lad,"  he  retorted,  with 
rather  a  wry  smile. 

"No — but  a  woman  is  always  older  than 
a  man,  even  if  he  is  sixty  and  she  six.  I  love 
youth.  Why  should  you  be  vexed  ?  And, 
besides,  don't  you  remember  —  didn't  you 
ever  hear?  'The  Ancient  of  days  is  eter- 
nally a  lad.'" 

"I  like  that,"  he  said;  "I  like  that.  How 
full  your  mind  is  of  such  things!" 

"And  there  is  another  that  I  love,  too. 
I  always  feel  like  quoting  it  to  pessimistic 
people — " 

79 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Indeed,  I'm  not  pessimistic,"  he  broke 
in. 

"Now  you're  being  feminine  and  taking 
things  personally,"  she  teased.  "Do  you 
think  I  would  have  asked  a  pessimist  to 
spend  a  fortnight  with  me  ?  But  do  listen 
to  this  idea  of  Creation.  'The  god  Toth 
laughed  seven  times  and  made  the  universe."' 

"One  feels  occasionally  that  he  is  still 
laughing,"  said  TrafFord,  a  little  dryly. 

"Oh,  with  one,  not  at  one!"  said  Meraud, 
but  he  did  not  answer. 

They  walked,  in  silence,  back  through  the 
dim  thickets  and  down  the  long  front  lawn, 
where  the  fire-flies  rose  and  fell  about  them, 
now  sinking  to  the  grass,  now  rising  to  the 
tops  of  the  tall  evergreens — sometimes  one, 
more  adventurous,  winging  far  up  towards 
the  stars. 

"  Look  at  that  one,  how  very  high  he  flies," 
she  said.  "  Perhaps  his  poor  little  brain  is 
turned  and  he  thinks  himself  a  star." 

"More  likely  he  thinks  some  star  a  fire-fly," 
answered  TrafFord,  and  his  tone  was  still 
tinged  with  something  that  struck  her  as  dis- 
content. 

80 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"A  fire-fly  towards  the  image  of  a  star, 

Deep  in  the  quiet  lake, 
Flashed  down  on  quivering  wings 
His  love  to  slake," 

said  Meraud,  softly.  "I  had  that  idea  too, 
once." 

"Whose  lines  are  those?  Yours?"  he 
asked. 

"All  my  life  I've  thought  little  scraps  of 
verse  —  stray  lines  —  odds  and  ends,"  she 
answered,  lightly.  "They  never  came  to 
anything.  I  could  never  finish  anything, 
not  even  a  diary.  I'm  altogether  an  'inex- 
pressive she."1 

"You  could  write,"  he  said,  looking  at  her 
seriously. 

"No,"  she  said,  with  the  little  air  of  finality 
that  he  was  beginning  to  know,  "you  are 
quite  mistaken.  I  think  in  scraps  like  that 
sometimes — I've  done  it  all  my  life,  as  I  told 
you — but  it  never  amounts  to  anything.  It's 
more  of  that  'remembering,'  I  fancy." 

"  But  what  became  of  the  fire-fly  in  your 
verse  ?"  he  persisted. 

"Why,  he  was  drowned,  of  course;"  she 
81 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

smiled  at  his  seriousness.  "He  died  re- 
proaching the  star  for  her  coldness,  and  she 
told  him  that  he  should  have  flown  up  and 
not  down." 

"  To  her  real  self,  not  to  her  image  ?" 
Trafford  asked.  And  she  answered,  still 
smiling: 

"Yes — that  was  in  my  mind,  but  I  never 
finished  it  on  paper." 

"It's  rather  a  true  little  tragedy,  I  fancy," 
he  said.  "There  are  so  many  fire-flies  and 
so  many  of  them  fly  down—  He  stooped 
and  released  one  from  a  tangle  of  grasses  at 
their  feet  as  he  spoke,  then  held  it  gently  on 
his  hand,  watching  it  glow  and  darken  as  it 
crawled  about  before  taking  flight. 

"The  negro  name  for  fire-flies  is  very  ugly 
but  very  expressive,"  she  said.  "They  call 
them  *  lightning-bugs/  My  mother  told  me 
once  of  a  country  ball  that  she  went  to,  here 
in  Virginia,  where  they  danced  on  the  lawn, 
by  moonlight,  and  how  do  you  think  she 
trimmed  her  dress  ?  She  was  very  poor,  my 
dear  mother,  and  white  tarleton  was  her  only 
wear  for  balls,  so  she  and  her  maid  caught 
dozens  of  fire -flies  and  sewed  them  up  in 
82 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

ruches  of  the  tarleton;  and  you  can  fancy  how 
pretty  they  looked,  glimmering  and  glowing 
all  over  her  skirt  as  she  danced.  I  asked 
her  if  she  didn't  think  it  was  just  a  bit  cruel 
and  she  said  that  she  ripped  her  gown  up 
and  set  them  all  free  before  she  went  to  bed." 

"Was  she  like  you  ?"  said  Trafford. 

"No— why?" 

"Because  a  gown  like  that  would  have 
suited  you,  as  that  thin  cloud  suits  the  moon 
—though  I'd  rather  not  see  you  in  it.  I'd 
rather  think  of  you  in  the  '  little  red,  scared 
skin'  of  the  fox  that  stopped  you  from  hunt- 
ing." 

"Thank  you  for  saying  so.  I  can't  fancy 
myself  adorned  with  living  jewels.  I  can't 
even  wear  feathers  in  my  hats,  and  I  can't 
eat  things  that  have  lived." 

"That's  like  you  again — but  why?" 

"It  seems  so  inconsistent,"  she  said, 
thoughtfully.  "I  love  animals.  I  can't  im- 
agine eating  them.  Why  should  I  munch 
little  pieces  of  my  sister  the  hen,  or  my 
brother  the  lamb,  as  St.  Francis  would  have 
said  ?"  He  looked  at  her  father  oddly,  she 
thought.  Was  he  going  to  advance  some  of 
83 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

the  weary  arguments  that  she  had  so  often 
listened  to  ? 

"I  don't  preach  it  to  others,  though,"  she 
hastened  to  add,  smiling. 

"No,  you  just  live  it,"  he  said;  "that's  the 
only  sermon  that  carries  any  weight,  after 
all.  I  can't  possibly  imagine  you  preaching 
about  anything." 

"Thank  you  again,"  she  said,  gayly. 
"You're  a  very  understanding  person.  I 
like  you." 

"And  I  love  you,"  thought  Trafford,  "but 
you  are  a  star  and  I  am  a  wise  fire-fly.  I  can't 
let  this  go  on.  I  won't  let  it  go  on — "  and  he 
set  his  teeth. 

He  made  her  an  elaborate  bow  of  acknowl- 
edgment, in  keeping  with  her  tone,  and  they 
continued  their  walk  towards  the  lawn  gate. 

"Did  you  like  the  game  of  'pretending* 
when  you  were  little  ?"  asked  Meraud,  as 
they  leaned  with  their  arms  on  its  lichened 
top,  and  looked  out  over  the  pale,  dream- 
lighted  valley  to  the  rapt  horizon  that  was 
like  peace  made  visible. 

"Rather.  I  used  to  play  it  by  myself  for 
hours  together.  I  haven't  outgrown  it  yet." 
84 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Were  you  an  only  child,  like  me?" 

"Yes.  One  has  to  dream  things — for  com- 
pany." 

"I  know,  and  it  grows  on  one." 

"Yes,  it  grows  on  one." 

"Perhaps  it  isn't  very  wise,"  she  said, 
rather  wistfully,  "but  it's  so  pleasant." 

"Well,  just  pleasantness  is  a  sort  of  wis- 
dom. Don't  you  think  so  ?"  he  said,  longing 
to  comfort  her. 

"It  is — it  is,  indeed,"  she  assented,  with 
swift  eagerness.  "Let's  pretend  then,  now- 
here— I  am  twenty  and  you  are  twenty,  and 
we  have  the  whole  world  before  us.  What 
will  you  choose  ?" 

Had  Traffbrd  been  in  the  least  a  conceited 
or  fatuous  young  man,  this  would  have 
seemed  to  him  a  direct  invitation  to  flirt 
amiably  in  a  picturesque  setting;  but  he  was 
neither  of  these  things,  and,  had  he  been, 
Meraud,  whose  intuitions  were  even  quicker 
than  his  own,  would  never  have  made  the 
remark.  One  of  the  chief  reasons  that  she 
liked  him  so  much  was  that  he  took  her 
exactly  as  she  meant  him  to  take  her — in  a 
word,  he  always  "understood."  Indeed,  he 
85 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

had  this  faculty  of  understanding  in  a  more 
marked  degree  than  any  one  whom  she  had 
ever  known,  with  the  exception  of  Anice. 
"  He  is  really  unusual,"  she  had  told  her  only 
that  evening;  "he  understands  before  one 
speaks,  sometimes."  And  Anice  had  replied, 
"Take  care."  "But  no,"  Meraud  had  as- 
sured her,  "he  isn't  in  the  least  a  sentimental 
type — he's  too  intelligent.  He  must  know 
something  of  my  life  —  it's  only  too  well 
known — and  if  he  knows  that,  he  must  also 
know  that  everything  of — of  that  sort — is 
dust  and  ashes  in  me.  No,  it's  you  who 
don't  understand  now."  "Perhaps,"  Anice 
had  admitted,  "only  I  tell  you  again,  take 
care."  Meraud  had  been  as  nearly  cross  as 
her  "douce"  nature  permitted,  but  Anice 
merely  remarked  "Take  care"  a  third- 
time,  and  went  cheerfully  on  with  her  em- 
broidery. 

"What  will  I  choose?"  said  Trafford. 
Well  he  knew  what  he  would  have  chosen 
then  and  now,  but  it  was  for  him  to  lie 
gallantly  if  he  were  to  keep  this  exquisite 
relationship  between  them.  "  Give  me  time," 
he  said,  smiling.  "Tell  me  what  you  would 
86 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

choose.     You  began  it,  you  know,  as  the  real 
children  say." 

"  Then  I  think,"  she  said,  on  a  long  breath, 
"that  I  would  choose  to  travel  in  every  land 
under  the  sun  and  to  know  every  language 
and  every  dialect,  so  that  I  could  talk  with 
the  people  wherever  I  went,  and  learn  to 
know  them  really  —  as  people  of  different 
tongues  never  know  one  another." 

"Why,  I  wrote  a  friend  that  very  thought 
only  last  night!"  exclaimed  Trafford,  startled 
out  of  his  sheath  of  self-control. 

"  Did  you  ?"  she  said,  and  she  looked  at 
him  musingly.  "That's  very  nice,  I  think. 
Once  or  twice  before — have  you  noticed  ?— 
we've  had  the  same  ideas." 

Had  he  noticed!  He  looked  away  from 
the  eyes  that  were  so  sweetly,  chilly  reflective, 
and  then  down  at  his  own  hands  resting  be- 
side hers  on  the  gate. 

"Yes,  I've  noticed  it,"  he  said. 

"It  isn't  a  usual  thing  with  me,"  she  con- 
tinued; "people,  as  a  rule,  don't  have  my 
sort  of  thoughts — don't  care  for  the  things  I 
care  for." 

"  Don't  they  ?"  he  said,  thickly. 
8? 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"No — and  you  do.  It's  very  strange — 
our  lives  must  have  been  so  different — but  it's 
very  charming."  She  wound  up  with  one 
of  the  smiles  that  made  Trafford  know  what 
Kalidasa  meant  by  "a  white  smile."  "And 
she  blushes  white,  too,"  he  thought;  "where 
another  woman  goes  red,  she  turns  a  daz- 
zling flame  -  white.  How  she  must  have 
blushed  for  love  —  for  love  of  some  one 
else."  And  his  heart  contracted  with  a 
fierce  pang  that  startled  him,  though  he 
knew  well  the  way  on  which  his  feet  were 
set. 

"You  like  travel,  then  ?"  he  asked,  in  order 
to  be  saying  something. 

"I  should  love  it — the  kind  I  dream  of; 
I  don't  care  for  the  sort  of  tourist  bobbing 
about  that  I've  done  heretofore.  I  wonder 
if  my  kind  will  ever  come  true  for  me." 

She  gazed  out  over  the  sleeping  valley,  as 
though  she  saw  other  lands  than  that  which 
lay  before  her. 

"And  your  kind?"  said  TrafFord. 

"I  should  like  to  go  to  some  far,  lovely 
country  in  the  East,  and  ride  through  it  on 
horseback — with  tents  and  things,  you  know 
88 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

—just  stopping  when  I  chose  and  going  on 
when  I  chose." 

"I  know  a  ride  like  that  that  I  should 
like  to  take  you,"  he  said,  and  his  blood 
shook  at  the  thought.  "It's  from  a  little 
village  up  to  Teheran;  part  of  it  is  over  a 
desert,  but  you  would  love  it." 

"Oh,  I  know  I  should!"  she  cried,  with  a 
child's  gusto  at  a  fairy  tale.  "Have  you 
travelled  much  that  way  ?" 

"Ever  since  I  was  twenty-four." 

"There's  another  thing  that  we  like  to- 
gether," she  said,  delightedly.  "You  must 
tell  me  all  about  it  some  time,  will  you  ?  I 
should  love  doing  it  over  with  you  in  fancy. 
I'm  nice  to  travel  with,"  she  added,  with 
the  naive  vanity  for  which  Anice  teased  her, 
and  at  which  she  laughed  herself  when  she 
caught  it's  echo.  But  she  was  too  full  of 
her  own  imaginings  to  notice  it  now,  and 
went  on:  "I  never  have  headaches  or  grum- 
bling fits,  and  I  don't  mind  roughing  it — if 
there's  plenty  of  water  for  baths,"  she  wound 
up,  smiling.  "That's  my  one  weakness. 
We  should  have  to  choose  well  -  watered 
countries,  I'm  afraid.  But  you'll  tell  me 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

more  about  it  ?     You'll  tell  me  some  of  your 
wanderings  to-morrow,  won't  you  ?" 

"I  should  love  it,"  said  Trafford,  and  he 
understood  wholly  Desdemona's  attraction 
for  Othello  when  she  listened  to  his  advent- 
urous yarns.  "There's  nothing  I  should 
like  better — only  if  we  might  go  together, 
really." 

"  Perhaps  we  may,"  she  said,  gayly.  "Who 
knows  ?  We  could  take  Anice  as  chaperon, 
on  a  yak  or  something." 

They  fell  to  laughing  together,  as  they 
so  often  did  —  this  congenial  playing  with 
dreams  was  so  pleasant  to  them  both. 

"Ah,  you  can't  think  how  I've  longed  for 
it!"  She  caught  up  the  thread  again.  "I've 
tried  so  often  to  slip  out  at  night  and  get  to 
one  of  those  strange  lands  that  draw  me  so." 

"'To  slip  out'?"  Frankly  he  did  not  al- 
ways comprehend  her. 

"Out  of  my  body,  you  know,  like  an 
Indian  yogi;  perhaps  I  do,  only  I  can't  re- 
member it.  Once  though —  She  stopped 
and  lifted  her  head  uneasily,  as  she  did  when 
she  was  about  to  say  something  that  her 
judgment  had  not  agreed  to. 
90 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

" < Once,' "  repeated  TrafFord.  "  Ah,  do  tell 
me!  You've  said  that  I  understand." 

"Yes,  but  I  don't  want  you  to  think  me 
quite  mad  or  a  fanatic  about  such  things." 

"Why,  don't  you  suppose  I've  ever  had 
queer  things  happen  to  me  ?  Every  one  has, 
I  fancy — every  one  who  thinks  at  all,  that  is; 
only  most  of  us  are  shy  about  speaking  of 
them." 

"As  I  am,"  said  Meraud.  "No,  I  don't 
think  I'll  tell  you — not  to-night." 

"  Are  you  afraid  of  giving  me  bad  dreams  ?" 
he  said,  accepting  her  decision. 

"No,  there's  nothing  alarming  in  it,  only 
it's  just  very  strange." 

"Then  tell  me — surely  you  can  trust  me 
not  to  scoff,  even  inwardly." 

She  looked  at  him  hesitating;  then,  as  usual, 
something  in  his  face  melted  her  resolve. 

"It  is  only  that  I  did  it  once,"  she  said. 

"Slipped  out  of  your  body  —  consciously, 
you  mean  ?"  asked  TrafFord,  startled. 

"Yes,  it  was  this  way.     Anice  had  been 

very  ill,  and  I  was  in  France — on  the  other  side 

of  the  ocean — and  I  was  very  anxious  and 

unhappy.     Cables  seemed  such  bleak  things, 

91 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

and  I  could  not  get  away  to  go  to  her;  there 
were  things  that— that  kept  me.  So  I  used  to 
calculate  the  exact  difference  in  time  just 
before  I  lay  down  for  my  afternoon  sleep, 
and  try  to  fancy  myself  in  her  room.  I 
would  say  over  and  over  to  myself:  'Now  I 
shall  go  there;  now  I  shall  go  there;  I  will 
go  there/'1 

"And  you  did?"  said  Trafford.  "Great 
Heavens,  how  amazing!" 

"Wait,"  she  said,  "I'll  tell  you.  Not  at 
once;  it  was  a  long  time — about  two  weeks. 
Then  one  afternoon,  suddenly,  I  was  there. 
The  odd  part  was  that  I  knew  my  body  was 
asleep  on  that  bed  in  France,  but  I  was  there 
in  America." 

"  How  did  it  seem  ?"  he  asked,  his  heart 
beating  faster  in  spite  of  himself. 

"It  was  all  quite  clear,  quite  real,  except 
one  corner  of  the  room;  that  looked  all  foggy. 
Then  I  called  to  her  and  tried  to  get  near 
her,  but  she  didn't  seem  to  see  me — and  it 
was  very  odd — I  couldn't  seem  to  go  exactly 
in  the  direction  that  I  wanted.  All  at  once 
she  went  to  a  corner  of  the  room  where  I 
knew  she  kept  her  travelling  -  case.  She 
92 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

seemed  to  be  arranging  it.  Her  back  was 
towards  me,  and  then  something  slipped  from 
her  hand  and  fell  on  the  floor  and  broke.  I 
couldn't  see  what  it  was,  though  I  tried  very 
hard.  It  made  an  odd  sound  in  falling — a 
muffled  sound  and  a  sharp  sound  together; 
but  I  knew  it  was  something  in  that  case, 
something  that  belonged  to  her,  and  she  said : 
'Oh,  I  wouldn't  have  broken  that  for  the 
world!'  And  her  maid  came  in  at  the  same 
moment." 

"  Yes,  and  then  ?"  asked  Traffbrd. 

"Then  I  was  so  excited  that  I  cried  out, 
Til  remember  that  and  tell  it  to  you  as  a 
proof!'  and  that  woke  me." 

"And  afterwards?"  he  said. 

"Why,  afterwards  I  found  from  Anice  that 
it  had  all  happened  on  the  very  day  just  as 
I  saw  it.  What  she  broke  was  a  little 
travelling-flask  covered  with  leather.  That 
made  the  queer  double  sound  I  heard,  and 
her  maid  remembered  that  she  had  said  just 
the  very  words  when  it  broke." 

"The   most   astounding  thing  about   it  is 
that  you  did  it  voluntarily,"  he  said.     "Have 
you  ever  done  it  since  ?" 
93 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"No,"  she  said,  thoughtfully.  "It  takes 
a  great  deal  of  willing,  I  think,  or  else  the 
desire  is  stronger  than  the  conscious  will. 
I  can't  desire  to  see  those  far-away  lands  as 
I  desired  to  see  Anice." 

"You  must  know  how  I  appreciate  your 
telling  me,"  said  Traffbrd.  "It  gives  one 
much  to  think  of." 

"Perhaps,"  she  said,  still  thoughtful,  "one 
is  not  meant  to  do  it  too  easily;  there  might 
be  too  great  a  fascination;  one  might  try  to 
lead  two  lives.  It  might  confuse  all  one's 
life." 

"Don't  you  think  Du  Maurier  must  have 
had  some  such  experience  when  he  wrote 
Peter  Ibbetsen  ?" 

"  That  dear  book — you  love  it,  too  ?  Yes, 
I  think  so.  And  Kipling  when  he  wrote 
The  Brushwood  Boy.  That  is  one  of  the 
stories  that  I  love  best  of  all." 

"And  I." 

"  How  we  like  the  same  things,"  she  said, 
again.  "How  nice  it  is  to  be  together.'* 

"I  should  blunder  if  I  tried  to  say  how 
nice,"  said  Trafford,  "but  you  must  know." 

They  walked  silently  back  to  the  house, 
94 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

and  stood  a  moment  under  an  acacia,  where 
a  mocking-bird  was  thrilling  all  the  air  with 
crystalline  ripples  of  sound.  Then  she  turn- 
ed and  held  out  her  hand. 

"Good-night,  sleep  well/*  she  said. 

"May  you  visit  one  of  those  lands  you 
long  to  see,"  he  answered.  But  his  thought 
was:  "Oh,  if  you  would  slip  into  one  dream 
of  mine,  just  one,  and  dream  that  you  too . . ." 
But  here  he  snapped  off  the  current  of  his 
thought,  and  ordered  himself  to  cease  from 
dreaming,  awake  or  asleep. 


VII 

IT  was  a  week  after  Trafford's  arrival, 
and  he  was  seated  on  the  columned 
portico  before  his  room,  at  a  table  spread 
with  note-books  and  manuscripts,  working 
savagely  as  an  antidote  to  those  dreams  that 
obsessed  him.  At  a  yard's  distance  stood 
Ba  'Raminta,  solemnly  wielding  a  long  fly- 
brush  made  of  a  wand  of  lilac,  from  which 
all  the  leaves  had  been  stripped  except  those 
at  the  extreme  end.  Her's  was  a  self-elected 
task,  and  made  the  unaccustomed  Trafford 
not  a  little  nervous,  though  it  was  undoubt- 
edly a  boon  to  have  the  flies  "kep'  ofFn 
him." 

"I  suppose  it's  an  hereditary  office  with 
pickaninnies/'  he  consoled  himself.  "She'd 
probably  be  doing  it  for  some  one  else  if  not 
for  me."  And  he  brought  Ba  'Raminta  gor- 
geous lollipops  from  "The  Shop,"  as  the 
nearest  country  store  was  called,  wrapped  in 
96 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

gold  -  and  -  silver  paper  that  filled  her  heart 
with  joy  and  a  lust  for  more,  and  drove  her 
to  wave  her  bough  so  energetically  that  some- 
times she  swept  a  paper  to  the  floor  and 
sometimes  brushed  the  student's  nose. 

He  had  been  moved  from  his  little  dormer- 
windowed  room  to  a  larger  one  on  the  ground- 
floor,  because,  as  Meraud  explained,  "An  his- 
torian doing  history  must  have  plenty  of 
elbow-room  and  cupboards  at  command." 

Ba  'Raminta,  as  she  labored,  regarded  him 
fixedly  with  eyes  as  unwinking  as  those  ac- 
credited to  ancient  divinities.  As  for  Traf- 
ford,  his  work  wouldn't  "go"  that  morning, 
and  he  got  more  and  more  nervous. 

"Ain't  you  tired,  you  funny  little  baby 
Buddha  ?"  he  asked,  finally.  "  Don't  you 
want  to  go  and  play  ?" 

"  Play  what  ?"  inquired  that  personage, 
who  was  nothing  if  not  practical. 

"  Oh,  dolls,  mud  -  pies  —  anything,"  said 
Traffbrd,  lamely. 

"I'd  rather  keep  keer  a'you." 

"  Oh,  you'd  rather  keep  keer  of  me,  eh  ?" 

"Mh— mh." 

"Why?" 

97 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"I  dunno." 

"But  why?" 

"Jess  so." 

"But  you  must  be  tired." 

"NawrraainV 

"What?" 

"I  say  nawrraain'." 

"Oh,  'no  you  ain't' — is  that  it?" 

"Mh— mh." 

All  the  while  she  waved  stolidly  her  wand  of 
office — now  right,  now  left,  now  up  and  down 
— like  a  small  bronze  image  set  to  clock-work. 

Trafford  fell  to  work  again,  and  still  the 
untiring  leaf-plume  waved  about  his  seeth- 
ing brain. 

"Ba  'Raminta,"  said  he,  finally,  driven  to 
desperation,  "I  don't  believe  there's  a  single 
fly  to  be  'kep'  off'  this  morning." 

"I  gwine  stop  an'  you  gwine  see,"  quoth 
she,  and  therewith  stood  motionless,  while 
all  the  flies  in  Christendom  seemed  to  cluster 
stickily  on  Trafford's  hands  and  papers — to 
explore  the  back  of  his  head,  his  ears,  and 
even  his  eyelids. 

"Ba  'Raminta,"  he  groaned,  "I  sit  cor- 
rected; continue  the  less  poignant  torture." 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

*Mh?"  she  inquired,  lilac-bough  poised 
and  ready. 

"Go  on,"  translated  Trafford,  tartly;  and 
added,  "if  you  please." 

"I  done  tole  you  I  pleases,"  said  she, 
tranquilly.  "You  done  fine  out  wherrer  deys 
any  flies,  ain'  you  ?"  This  last  remark  not 
being  meant  ironically,  but  merely  put  forth 
in  a  spirit  of  inquiry. 

"Yes,  oh  yes,  I  'done  fine  out,'"  he  ad- 
mitted. "I'll  confess  to  you,  Ba  'Raminta, 
that  I  don't  believe  there  were  ever  so  many 
flies  in  the  world  on  one  object  as  there  were 
on  me  just  now  when  you  stopped  'keeping 
keer'  of  me." 

"Yase  dey  wuz,"  said  she,  promptly.  "I 
done  see  a  dade  horg  onct,  an'  dey  was  mo' 
on  him — kaze — 

'  "We  won't  compare,"  TrafFord  interrupted, 
hurriedly.  "In  this  case  comparisons  are 
both  odious  and  odorous." 

"  Please,  suh—  "  began  Ba  'Raminta. 

"Please  what?" 

"Please,   suh,   tuh   go   on   talkin'.     I   like 
tuh  hyah  you  talk  them  growlin'  wuds  when 
they  ain'  pinted  at  me." 
a  99 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

"Oh,  Ba  'Raminta,  joy  of  my  heart,  what 
do  you  mean  by  'pinted  at  you'?" 

"When  you  ain'  mad  at  me!1 

"But,  dear  infant,  I'm  not  'mad  at'  any- 
body." 

"Them  turrable  big  wuds  alluz  sound  like 
they's  mad  at  sump'n'.  But  I  like  'em.  Dey 
soun's  so  fine  an'  quality." 

"What  is  'quality,'  exactly?" 

"You'se  quality,"  said  she,  sincerely. 

"For  that  piece  of  discrimination,  O 
cherub  of  wisdom,  you  shall  have  a  gilded 
gingerbread  elephant  this  very  afternoon." 

"Sarvant,  suh,"  responded  she,  bobbing 
deftly,  without  disturbing  the  rhythm  of  the 
'fly-brush.' 

"Why  do  you  do  that?" 

"My  maw  she  done  taught  me  manners" 
stated  Ba  'Raminta,  a  trifle  severely. 

"Yes,  she  has.  I  congratulate  you  and 
her,"  said  TrafFord,  and  then  made  another 
desperate  effort  to  apply  himself  to  the  work 
before  him.  It  was  no  use;  his  mind 
skidded  from  the  track  on  which  he  would 
keep  it,  like  a  piece  of  obstinate  machinery. 

"  Ba  'Raminta,"  said  he,  suddenly,  weakly 
100 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

grasping  at  any  excuse  for  stopping,  "don't 
I  hear  a  horse  coming  ?" 

"A-gwine  or  a-comin',  'tis  sho'  a  hawse." 
"  And  it's  on  the  gravel,  ain't  it  ?" 
"His  foots  is  scrunchin'  like  'twuz,"  she 
admitted,  peering  out  between  the  columns. 
The  next  moment  she  had  flung  the  lilac- 
bough    from    her    with    every    symptom    of 
frenzied    excitement,    and    shrieking,    "  'Tis 
Marse   Robert!     Tis    Marse   Robert!"   had 
clambered  over  a  low  window-sill  into  the 
room  beyond,  and  was  gone. 

"Who  the  devil  may  'Marse  Robert'  be  ?" 

thought  Traffbrd,  none  too  pleased  with  this 

announcement.     "Was  the   rest   of  his   stay 

in  this  very  brief  and  equivocal  paradise  to 

be    marred    by  the    presence    of   a    ( Marse 

Robert'  ?"     He    stood    peering   from    under 

discontented  brows  at  the  curve  in  the  gravel, 

which  would   enlighten   him,  at   least,  as  to 

the  appearance  of  the  intruder,  and  presently 

there   rode   into   sight   a   big   man   of  about 

fifty,  on  a  chestnut  cob,  who  drew  rein  before 

the  front  door  and  shouted: 

"Is  anybody  at  home?" 

Then  came  the  headlong  rush  of  Ba  'Ramin- 

101 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

ta,  who  clung  to  one  dusty  boot  with  both 
hands,  and  seemed  about  to  kiss  it  in  the 
exuberance  of  her  welcome.  The  man  on 
the  horse  smiled  pleasantly  down  at  her, 
and,  as  he  talked,  Trafford  could  observe 
him  at  his  leisure.  He  had  taken  off  his  hat, 
and  was  running  his  hand  over  his  warm 
forehead  and  through  a  tufted  mass  of  gray- 
black  hair.  It  was  a  fine  head,  blocked  out, 
it  seemed  to  the  man  watching  him,  as  marble 
is  blocked  in  the  beginning.  The  face,  too, 
had  this  massive,  hewn  look,  but  there  was 
something  powerful  and  suggestive  in  its  lack 
of  finish,  and  the  eyes  made  up  in  complete- 
ness for  any  slurring  over  of  the  other  feat- 
ures. Trafford  watched  them  flitting  here, 
there,  and  everywhere,  taking  everything  in, 
as  it  were,  while  their  owner  talked  to  the 
child,  and  decided  that  he  would  not  like  to 
be  under  the  observation  of  those  eyes  were 
they  bent  on  finding  out  something  that  he 
wished  hidden.  "They're  just  the  color  of 
the  flame  of  a  spirit-lamp,"  he  told  himself. 
"  I've  heard  of  fiery  -  blue  eyes,  but  these 
aren't  fiery,  just  lambent.  Decidedly, '  Marse 
Robert'  is  a  personage.  And  as  there  doesn't 
102 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

seem  to  be  anybody  coming,   I'd   better  go 
out  and  make  obeisance." 

"Ah,"  said  the  other,  swinging  from  his 
horse  as  Trafford  came  down  the  front  steps, 
"you  must  be  young  Trafford.  Price  told 
me  you  were  here.  I'm  Robert  Dundas— 
Dr.  Dundas.  How  d'ye  do  ?  Where's  every- 
body ?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Trafford.  "That's 
why  I  came  out.  And  there  don't  seem  to  be 
any  servants  about." 

"There  never  are,"  interrupted  Dundas, 
twinkling. 

"So  I  think  Ba  'Raminta  and  I  had  better 
take  your  horse  to  the  stables,"  ended  Traf- 
ford. 

"Ba  'Raminta  is  quite  equal  to  taking  old 
Truepenny  all  by  herself.  She  can  'keep 
keer'  of  three  cows  at  a  time  when  she  ain't 
'  buss-haded,'  can't  you,  dumpling  ?"  said 
Dundas,  tweaking  the  curly  cue  of  wool 
nearest  him. 

'''  'Cose  I  kin,"  replied  she,  arching  her  little 
pear-shaped  stomach  proudly. 

"  That's  it.     You  stay  and  talk  to  me,"  to 
Trafford.     Then     to    Ba    'Raminta    again: 
103 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

"  How're  the  twins  ?  How're  Glycerine  and 
Vaseline  ?" 

Trafford  smiled  politely  at  what  he  thought 
was  some  obscure  medical  joke  known  only 
to  the  doctor  and  the  infant,  but  the  latter 
replied,  composedly: 

"Glycerin,  she  well,  but  Vasleen  done  got 
her  jaw  busted  a-lettin'  Unc'  Jim  de  black- 
smith wrinch  out  a  toof  wid  a  buggy-key." 

" Bless  my  soul!"  exclaimed  Dundas.  "Has 
she  ever  done  it  before  ?" 

"Naw,  an'  she  say  az  how  she  ain'  nuvver 
gwine  do  hit  agin,  befo'  or  behine'." 

"I  should  think  not.  I'll  come  and  see 
after  her  presently.  Now,  scoot  and  get 
Truepenny  something  to  eat  and  drink;  and 
hi!  don't  let  them  take  that  saddle  off  yet — 
he's  too  hot — mind  now!  If  you  forget,  noth- 
ing will  come  out  of  my  pocket  for  you." 

"Naw,  J-H/Z,  I  ain'  gwine  furgit;  Jeeze,  he 
know  I  ain'." 

With  which  invocation,  softened  from 
blasphemy  by  intention  and  pronunciation, 
she  and  the  chestnut  cob  disappeared  from 
sight. 

"Oh,  but,"  said  Trafford,  limp  with  mirth, 
iQ4 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

"are  there  really  two  darkies  on  the  place 
named  'Glycerine'  and  'Vaseline'?" 

"Certainly  there  are.  The  negro  imagina- 
tion runs  riot  on  names.  They  invent  them, 
dream  them,  take  them  out  of  high-flown 
novels  and  even  from  the  labels  on  physic 
bottles  as  you  see,  when  they're  mellifluous 
enough.  Why,  I  could  tell  you  stories  by  the 
yard,  true  stories — "  He  stopped  and  laughed 
at  some  sudden  recollection. 

"Do  go  on,"  urged  TrafFord.  "Is  it  an- 
other queer  name  ?" 

"Yes,  about  the  queerest  I  ever  heard,  I 
think.  It  was  on  a  visit  that  I  was  making 
once  to  some  people  in  Queen  Anne  County. 
They  had  a  little  mulatto  maid  whose  name 
was  Iwilla.  It  struck  me  as  rather  an  odd 
name,  and  so  I  asked  about  it.  None  of  the 
family  knew  its  origin,  but  one  day  I  went 
with  Iwilla  to  her  mother's  cabin  and  tackled 
the  old  lady  herself.  She  explained "  -  he 
chuckled  again — "  that  Iwilla's  whole  name 
was  'I-will-arise-and-go-to-my-Father/  The 
beginning  of  the  sentence  had  struck  her  as 
so  harmonious  that  she  had  the  girl  baptized 
with  the  whole  sentence  in  order  to  call  her 
105 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

by  the  first  part  of  it.  Now,  that's  a  true 
tale.  I  didn't  invent  it." 

"I  don't  believe  anybody  could  have  in- 
vented it,"  gasped  Trafford. 

Dundas's  mood  had  changed  suddenly. 
He  was  standing  with  his  hands  behind  him 
gazing  out  over  the  lawn  from  under  his 
level,  fringy  brows.  "Blessed  old  place,"  he 
said,  half  to  himself,  "how  well  it  is  look- 
ing." Then  he  turned,  in  his  abrupt  way, 
to  Trafford.  "Let's  sit  down,"  he  said. 
"Draw  up  a  chair.  Tell  me,  how  is  Mrs. 
Cabell  ?  How  do  you  find  her  looking  ?" 

"She — she  seems  very  well  to  me,"  replied 
Trafford,  a  little  confused. 

"Well?  How?  Does  she  ride  much? 
Does  she  get  tired  ?  Is  she  prudent  ?" 

"I— I  think  so." 

"Which?    All?" 

"She  looks  well;  she  rides — I  don't  think 
she  gets  tired,"  said  Trafford,  meeting  the 
dominating  eyes  with  a  look  that  he  could  have 
kicked  himself  for  feeling  defiant.  "Deuce 
take  the  man!"  he  thought.  "I'm  not  under 
his  medical  authority." 

"Don't  get  huffed,"  observed  Dundas, 
1 06 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

coolly,  "I've  got  a  rather  short  time  to. find 
out  some  very  important  things  in.  Miss 
Mayo's  report  will  be  colored  by  anxiety — 
Mrs.  Cabell's  will  be  too  indifferent.  Now, 
you,  you  see,  are  an  outsider,  and  your  ob- 
servation will  be  impartial.  Should  you  say 
that  Mrs.  Cabell  looks  well,  merely  seeing 
her  as  an  acquaintance  would  see  her  ?" 

These  remarks  irritated  Trafford  to  such 
a  point  that  his  face  and  manner  were  super- 
bland  as  he  replied:  "I'm  quite  sure  that  I 
should  never  have  fancied  her  in  anything 
but  the  most  perfect  health,  except  that  she 
mentioned,  herself,  some  slight  trouble  with 
her  heart." 

"Ah,"  reflected  Dundas,  "doesn't  like  the 
'outsider'  and  'acquaintance'  being  rubbed  in 
—rather  a  testy  chap — but  likeable — doesn't 
like  me,  though." 

"Thanks  for  that  clear  answer,"  he  said, 
aloud,  "it's  a  great  relief  to  me." 

"Damn  your  cocksureness!"  thought  Traf- 
ford, for  it  is  singular  how  much  cruder  the 
language  of  thought  is  than  uttered  language. 

"She  hasn't  played  any  pranks  since  you've 
been  here,  then  ?"  Dundas  continued.  "  Not 
107 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

been  jumping  that  mare  of  hers — not  riding 
'cross  country  ?" 

"No,"  said  Trafford. 

"And  her  appetite  —  how's  her  appetite? 
Does  she  eat  well  ?" 

Trafford  felt  as  though  some  Cyclops  were 
asking  if  Aurora  relished  a  mutton-chop 
every  day,  and  tried  hard  to  keep  the  foolish 
vexation  out  of  his  eyes  and  voice. 

"Yes,  I  should  say  that  her  appetite  was 
good,"  he  said,  choking  a  little  over  the  words. 
This  Dr.  Dundas,  he  felt,  would  have  taken 
all  the  down  off  of  Psyche's  wings  with  one 
strong  practical  clutch  rather  than  see  her 
stumble  over  a  flower. 

As  for  Dundas,  he  was  busily  engaged  in 
killing  two  birds  with  one  accurately  aimed 
stone,  as  his  custom  was:  he  was  finding 
out  what  he  wished  about  Meraud,  but  he 
was  finding  out  still  more  about  the  young 
man  before  him. 

"Do  you  happen  to  know,"  he  went  on, 
ruthlessly,  but  caught  himself  up—  "no," 
he  said,  "you  wouldn't  be  apt  to  know  about 
that.  I'll  ask  Miss  Mayo  that — I'm  rather 
anxious  about  the  temperature  at  which  she 
108 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

takes  her  baths — mustn't  take  them  too  cold 
— mad  child!  Used  to  put  a  lump  of  ice  in 
her  tub  in  hot  weather." 

"What  the  devil  is  he  going  to  ask  me  or 
say  next  ?"  fumed  Trafford  inwardly.  He 
felt  as  if  he  were  having  little  bits  of  his  men- 
tal skin  flicked  off  with  a  knife  point. 

Dundas  went  on,  unmoved:  "I  suppose 
she  takes  her  six  raw  eggs  a  day,  regularly — 
or,  do  you  know  ?" 

"  I  really  don't  know,"  said  the  young  man, 
stiffly. 

Dundas  could  have  shouted  with  laughter. 
"What  an  irascible  chap  it  is,"  he  thought 
amusedly.  "I  wonder  if  he's  ever  shown 
her  the  peppery  side  of  himself — I'll  wager 
not,"  he  concluded  astutely;  but  again  he 
decided  that  Traffbrd  was  likeable.  "I'll 
smooth  down  his  ruffled  feathers  afterwards. 
If  she  likes  him,  he  must  like  me."  And 
with  this  reflection,  he  rose  to  meet  Dinky, 
flying  towards  him,  overwhelmed,  to  lay  the 
hospitality  of  Kingsweather  at  his  feet. 

"Lor',  Marse  Robert!     Lor',  Marse  Rob- 
ert!" panted  she.     "Dat  low-down   trash  of 
a  Ba  'R'minta  jess  dis  minit  done  tole  me 
109 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

you  hyuh — an'  Miss  Meraud  an'  Miss  Anice 
dey  off  in  de  woods  drivin'  somewhar'.  An' 
please,  suh,  tub  scuse  me — I  gwine  lam  de 
stuffin'  out  dat  Ba  'R'minta,  an'  yo*  room's 
radey  an'  a  barth  an'-  Dundas  bore  her 
off,  still  protesting,  and  their  mingled  voices 
died  away  together  down  the  long  hall. 


VIII 

TR AFFORD  would  scarcely  have  recog- 
nized his  brusque  acquaintance  of  the 
morning,  had  he  seen  him  greeting  Meraud 
an  hour  later.  The  "lambent"  eyes  were 
veiled  with  some  deep  emotion,  the  great  voice 
softened,  the  hands  in  which  he  took  hers, 
outstretched  to  meet  him,  almost  shyly  loose 
in  their  quick  grasp. 

"My  dear  friend,"  said  Meraud.  "My 
dear,  dear  Barbo." 

She  called  him  sometimes  "  Robert,"  some- 
times by  this  nickname,  which  had  been  the 
result  of  childish  efforts  to  pronounce  his  real 
name  correctly. 

"And  how  are  you?  And  how  is  it  with 
you  ?"  she  went  on.  "You  look  so  well — but 
come  and  sit  near  me  and  tell  me." 

"I  am  well,  and  it  is  with  me  as  you 
would  want  it  to  be,"  he  said,  in  that  same 
in 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

quiet  voice  which  would  have  so  astonished 
Traffbrd. 

"Dear  Barbo,"  she  said,  and  put  her  hand 
in  his  again.  He  sat  looking  down  on  the 
delicate  fingers  for  a  while  without  saying 
anything. 

"Have  you  come  to  stop  with  us  for  a 
little,  or  are  you  on  your  way  somewhere  ?" 
she  asked,  at  last. 

"I'm  'on  my  way,'  as  usual,"  he  said, 
smiling,  "but  I  can  stop  for  two  days.  My 
kit  is  in  old  Merriweather's  saddle-bags, 
which  he  lent  me  for  the  occasion." 

"That  is  good.  But  you're  coming  in 
August  to  spend  your  real  vacation  with  us  ? 
— it's  a  promise,  you  know." 

"As  if  I  would  forget  it." 

"I  think  you're  thinner,  Barbo,  now  that 
I  look  at  you,  and  you're  certainly  less 
gray." 

She  observed  him  affectionately,  making 
him  turn  his  head  aside,  that  she  might  get 
a  better  view  of  his  thick  mane. 

"  Do  you  suspect  me  of  hair-dye  ?"  he 
asked,  laughing  now.  "  It  seems  to  me  that 
we're  exchanging  vocations — you're  examin- 
112 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

ing  me,  and  it  is  I  who  ought  to  be  examining 
you." 

"Oh,  my  dear  Robert — I  do  hate  it  so — 
my  heart  always  begins  to  bump  at  the  mere 
thought  of  being  listened  to.  Do  put  it  off." 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  obediently,  "I  can 
see  by  your  face  that  you're  a  great  deal 
better.  Just  come  to  the  window  a  minute, 
then." 

"Oh,  and  I  do  hate  being  peered  at — " 

But  she  went  submissively,  and  held  her 
face  upturned  while  he  scrutinized  it  nar- 
rowly, lifting  first  one  broad  eyelid  and  then 
the  other  with  his  deft  thumb,  in  order  to 
see  more  plainly  the  clear,  blue-whites  of 
her  eyes,  transparent  as  a  child's. 

"Your  nerves  are  much  better — infinitely 
better,"  he  said,  as  they  went  back  to  their 
places,  after  having  made  her  hold  out  one 
hand  with  fingers  widely  spread.  "There's 
no  trembling  there  now.  You're  in  much 
better  spirits,  ain't  you  ?" 

"Oh,  much!     I've  been  having  such  a  nice 

*  playmate'    lately — that's   what   Anice    calls 

him.     You   met   him,   didn't  you  ?     A   Mr. 

Traffbrd.     Jack   Price  is  a  great  friend  of 

"3 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

his.  He's  really  very,  very  nice,  Barbo. 
You  must  like  him,  please." 

"If  your  majesty  pleases,  I  like  him  al- 
ready, but  he  doesn't  like  me — at  present." 

"  Does  that  mean  you'll  make  him  like  you, 
dear  Conceit  ?" 

"It  means  I'll  be  more  considerate  of  his 
feelings  in  future.  I  found  him  a  little  testy; 
but  then  I  was  in  a  very  practical  mood, 
and  I  fancy  he  wasn't." 

"Why,  he  seems  to  me  to  have  the  nicest 
temper." 

"You  probably  haven't  tried  it  to  any 
great  extent,"  observed  Dundas,  dryly.  "I 
should  not  employ  you  as  an  accurate  test 
of  the  sweetness  of  people's  tempers." 

"  But  what  did  you  do  to  him,  Barbo  ? 
Did  you  tease  him  ?" 

"I  put  some  very  practical  questions  to 
him,  about — you."  And  he  watched  her  face 
as  narrowly  as  he  had  done  at  the  window, 
but  it's  only  change  was  to  one  of  sincere 
amazement. 

"  About  me  ?  But  why  should  that  vex 
him  ?" 

"One  doesn't  like  to  think  of  roses  having 
114 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

diseases,  though  one  knows  they  may,"  said 
Dundas,  with  acumen. 

"But  that  sounds  so  silly  and  supersensi- 
tive,  and  he  really  isn't  that  —  really,  he 
isn't." 

"I'm  rather  supersensitive  about  you,  my- 
self, you  know,"  he  said,  with  a  queer  smile. 
"I  don't  know  that  I'd  like  another  doctor 
fellow  putting  plump  questions  to  me  about 
your  daily  habits  and  your  appetite." 

"Robert!     You  didn't!" 

"Why,  yes,  I  did — I  knew  I  could  find  out 
better  from  him  some  things  that  I  wanted  to 
know  than  from  either  you  or  Miss  Anice. 
I  didn't  really  shock  him,  you  know — only 
ruffled  him  up  a  bit.  He's  a  good  chap,  I 
think.  He'll  probably  realize  the  fact  that 
I  did  it  all  for  your  sake,  and  forgive  me." 

"You  and  Anice,"  observed  Meraud, 
really  annoyed  at  this  remark,  "are  absolute- 
ly humiliating  with  your  fixed  idea  that 
every  one  who  sees  me  must  fall  in  love  with 
me.  You,  Robert,  who've  written  such 
clever  papers  about  Tidee  fixe'  ought  to  be 
careful  how  you  indulge  one." 

"Certainly  he's  in  love  with  you,"  said 
9  115 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

Dundas,     unmoved.     "I    wouldn't    give     a 
dried  fig  for  him  if  he  weren't." 

"You  spoil  everything,"  said  Meraud,  and 
her  voice  shook  a  little. 

"Forgive  me!  Forgive  me!"  he  exclaimed, 
instantly  repentant.  "How  could  I  imagine 
that  it  would  really  hurt  you  ?  You  know 
that  I  wouldn't  hurt  you,  Meraud — "  His 
voice  was  shaking,  too,  now. 

"Yes,  I  know  it,  indeed  I  know  it,"  she 
assured  him,  won  from  her  momentary  vexa- 
tion by  the  sight  of  his  real  distress.  "But 
all — all  that — that  sort  of  teasing  is  so  hate- 
ful to  me — so  utterly  hateful,  dear  Barbo. 
It  smirches  everything,  and  I  do  like  him  so. 
I  don't  know  when  I've  liked  any  one  so 
much." 

Dundas  sat  looking  down  in  silence  again, 
after  a  way  that  he  had;  then  he  said: 

"Tell  me  about  him.  Why  do  you  like 
him  so  much  ?  He  must  be  really  a  fine 
chap  if  you  like  him  as  much  as  that." 

"Well,  then,"  she  said,  smiling,  her  com- 
posure quite  restored,  "first  of  all,"  and  she 
marked  it  off  on  one  finger,  "  he's  companion- 
able—" 

116 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"And  then?" 

"Secondly,  he's  very  companionable." 

"And  thirdly?" 

"Thirdly,  he's  most  companionable." 

She  sat  and  looked  at  him  mischievously 
out  of  long,  gray  eyes  that  were  almost  black 
in  the  half  light  of  the  room. 

"But  there  must  be  more  than  that. 
What  do  you  find  in  him  besides  just  com- 
panionableness  ?" 

She  leaned  forward  and  looked  at  him 
seriously.  "Barbo,"  she  said,  softly,  "you 
know  I  say  all  sorts  of  things  to  you  that 
I  wouldn't  say  to  any  one  else — for  many 
reasons,  but  chiefly  because  you  never  laugh 
at  me." 

"Yes  ?"  he  said,  seeing  that  she  hesitated. 

"Well,  for  one  thing,"  she  went  on,  slowly, 
and  he  saw  the  mystic  look  that  he  loved, 
and  yet  that  baffled  him,  gather  about  her 
mouth  and  in  her  eyes.  "For  one  thing, 
Barbo,  I  think — no,  I  feel  that  he  is — I  won- 
der if  you're  going  to  laugh  at  me  for  the 
first  time?" 

"You  know  that  I  am  not,  Meraud,"  he 
said,  in  a  voice  that  was  a  little  hoarse. 
"7 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

"  But  anybody  else  in  the  world  would 
laugh — and  even  to  me  the  words  sound  queer 
before  I  say  them,  I've  had  so  much  of  the 
world-cackle  in  my  ears  all  my  life — but— 

"Oh,  dear  child,  tell  me,"  he  urged;  "you 
know  that  I  could  not  laugh  at  any  serious 
idea  of  yours,  no  matter  how  wild  it  was.'* 

"Then,  Barbo,  I  like  him  for  one  thing: 
because  he  seems  pure." 

"  You  mean —  "  said  Dundas. 

"  I  mean  just  that,"  she  answered.  "  Clean 
of  mind  and  body.  Pure  as  —  as  —  the 
'  Knights  of  the  Grail '  understood  purity— 

"You  mean  chaste,"  said  Dundas,  in  his 
blunt  way.  "It's  not  impossible.  I  trust 
your  intuitions.  I  have  known  two  men  in 
my  life  who  lived  like  that.  Manly  men, 
men  every  inch,"  he  added,  watching  the 
white  flicker  on  her  face,  that  told  him  of 
stirred  imagination  and  a  heart  thrilling  as 
at  a  glimpse  of  some  wildly  spiritual  ideal. 
And  as  he  watched  her,  he  misquoted  to  him- 
self slightly  the  well-worn  lines: 

"A  creature  all  too  pure  and  good, 

For  human  nature's  daily  food — " 

118 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Unless  she  finds  it  within  herself,  she'll 
never  get  happiness — not  in  this  world/'  he 
thought  sadly.  "We  jwho  would  give  our 
lives  for  her — no,  who  would  go  on  stumbling 
under  the  burden  of  them  for  her — Anice 
Mayo  and  I — we  can't  give  her  that." 

And  he  sat  watching  her  and  suffering  in  a 
way  that  she  never  divined,  for  threading  his 
bluntness,  like  a  skein  of  fire,  was  a  strand  of 
feeling  as  subtle  as  any  that  vibrated  in  her 
own  being — a  sensitiveness  as  delicate  as  any 
girl's  and  far  more  complex.  He  looked  now, 
through  tears  which  she  never  saw,  at  the 
hands,  so  spiritual  and  impassioned,  which 
were  clasped  together  in  her  lap,  and  which 
had  clung  to  his  in  a  time  of  great  stress  and 
temptation,  when  all  other  hands  had  slack- 
ened their  hold  and  withdrawn  themselves. 

"My  life — what  is  my  life?"  he  thought 
contemptuously.  "I'm  afraid  I  would  give 
her  the  soul  she  believes  in  so  firmly  if  I  knew 
how  to  get  at  it."  And  a  sensation  like  a 
grim  smile  went  through  him. 

He  left  Kingsweather  for  New  York  late 
in  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day,  but  not 
119 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

before   Anice   had   secured   him   for   a    long 
talk. 

"Tell  me,"  she  said,  and  she  grew  white 
as  she  said  it — "tell  me  all  that  you  haven't 
told  her.  Is  she  really  better?  Is  this — 
this  trouble  leaving  her?" 

"She  is  certainly  better,"  he  answered. 
"The  heart  action  is  much  stronger  and  more 
regular,  but  she  must  be  careful  still.  You 
must  watch  her  a  little — even  if  it  vexes  her," 
and  he  smiled. 

"Oh,  thank  God!"  said  Anice.  "Oh,  I 
thank  God!"  and  she  broke  down  and  cried 
a  little  for  the  first  time  in  months. 

He  stood  with  his  back  to  her,  looking  out 
of  the  window  until  she  was  quiet  again;  then 
he  said,  abruptly: 

"  You  like  this  young  Trafford  ?" 

"I  do  —  sincerely,"  said  Anice,  startled. 
"Why?" 

"  Because  I  feel  something  coming  there — 
something  gathering — not  a  storm  exactly, 
but—" 

He  stopped  and  looked  at  her  from  under 
his  straight  brows.    She  returned  the  look,  puz- 
zled; then  suddenly  her  whole  face  changed. 
1 20 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Oh  no,"  she  said— "no."  And  she  put 
up  her  hand  as  if  warding  off  something. 

"I've  inquired  all  about  him,  you  may  be 
sure,"  said  Dundas.  "He's  a  thoroughly 
good  sort:  well  born,  well  bred,  intelligent,  has 
money  of  his  own — not  a  tremendous  amount, 
but  enough." 

"And  you  think  that  is  enough  for  Me- 
raud  ?"  inquired  her  friend,  in  such  an 
injured  tone  that  he  began  to  laugh. 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said,  "I  quite  under- 
stand. I  feel  exactly  as  you  do,  you  may  be 
sure.  But,  then,  unless  one  of  the  'sons  of 
God'  should  descend  again  as  in  old  days, 
and  find  this  'daughter  of  man'  fair,  I  don't 
think  that  either  of  us  would  be  quite  satis- 
fied. And  even  then — "  He  laughed  again, 
and  shrugged  a  shoulder.  "I  have  thought 
that  I  might  have  intrusted  her  to  Robert 
Browning,"  he  said,  whimsically,  "but  even 
he  was  a  man." 

Anice  could  not  help  laughing  too. 

"I   suppose  we   are   rather  foolish   about 

her,"  she  said,  "but  this — but  Mr.  Trafford 

—he's   very   nice,   very   pleasant,  but  —  tell 

me,"  she  broke  off,  anxiously,  "do  you  see 

121 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

anything   very   wonderful   in   him — anything 
to  make  her  feel  to  him,  like  that  ?" 

'* 'Parce  que  mot — cetait  mo/,  parce  que  lui — 
c'ttait  lui',"  said  Dundas;  "that  has  been 
the  best  reason  since  the  beginning  of  such 
things,  I  suppose." 

"But,  seriously,  as  another  man." 

"He  has  charm,"  said  Dundas.  "There's 
something  winning  about  him  and  —  he's 
romantic." 

"But,  Doctor  Dundas—" 

"My  dear  Miss  Anice,  haven't  you  found 
out  yet  that,  with  all  her  wonderful  qualities, 
Meraud  is  romantic  too  ?" 

"But  after  what  she  has  gone  through — 
after  that— 

Dundas  became  more  abrupt  than  ever. 

"My  dear  Miss  Anice,  did  you  ever  look 
out  the  meaning  of  the  word  'reaction'?" 

"I  haven't  looked  it  out  that  I  remember, 
but  I  know  what  it  means." 

"Pardon  me,  I  doubt  if  you  do,  exactly. 
Come,  let's  look  it  out  together.  Where's  a 
dictionary  ?" 

Anice  meekly  brought  the  required  article, 
and  they  found  the  word. 
122 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Now,"  said  Dundas,  "read  it  aloud, 
please." 

She  did  so,  while  he  turned  again  to  the 
window  and  stood  listening. 

"Reaction.  Counteraction,  reciprocal  ac- 
tion, action  in  the  contrary,  specially  back- 
ward direction.'" 

"You  will  notice,"  he  remarked,  without 
turning,  "the  definitions  'reciprocal  action* 
and  'action  specially  in  a  backward  direc- 
tion/" 

"But  what — "  faltered  Anice. 

"My  dear  girl,"  said  Dundas,  almost  an- 
grily, "do  you  think  that  because  she  looks 
and  thinks  and  feels  and  acts  like  an  angel 
that  Meraud  is  an  angel  ?  She's  a  human  be- 
ing, I  can  tell  you,  and  a  very  human  being,  in 
the  most  beautiful  sense  of  the  word.  That 
heart  of  hers,  weak  or  strong,  pumps  red, 
human  blood,  and  not  ichor — and  it's  as  big 
as  the  world  and  has  the  needs  of  the  world. 
I  know  what  you  would  say — all  that  you 
would  say,"  impatiently — "but  that's  neither 
here  nor  there.  Rather  it's  here.  Do  you 
think  that  nature  will  let  such  a  being  as  that 
continue  to  live  placidly — without  any  throes 
123 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

or  interruptions,  the  ascetic,  book  -  bound 
solitary,  unnatural — yes,  unnatural  life  that 
she  has  been  leading  here  for  five  years  ? 
No,  I  tell  you!  Reaction  is  bound  to  come — 
the  reciprocal  action,  the  action  backward. 
The  time  has  come — it  is  here,  I  tell  you— 
and  this" — he  paused,  and  continued  more 
soberly — "this  young  man  has  come  with  it. 
God  knows,  I'm  a  blind  bat;  God  knows,  I 
trust  her  intuitions.  And  yet  in  these  things 
there  is  a  glamour,  an  infernal  glamour — 
I  beg  your  pardon." 

"It's  nothing — go  on,"  murmured  Anice. 

"Well,  a  celestial  glamour,  if  you  like — the 
very  Maya  or  illusion  that  she  herself  speaks 
of,  and — "  He  broke  off,  tossing  out  one 
hand. 

"But — but  you  like  him?"  Anice  vent- 
ured. 

"Like  him?  Yes.  I've  said  he's  likeable. 
Like  him  as  a  lover — as  a  husband  for  her? 
That's  a  different  matter." 

"She  says  that  she  will  never  marry- 
never." 

"Oh,  'she  says' — 'she  says!'  What  are 
sayings  when  a  great  blinding  wave  of  some 
124 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

force  stronger  than  electricity  volumes  down 
upon  you  ?" 

He  was  striding  up  and  down  the  room 
now,  and  the  eyes  under  their  knotted  brows 
were  very  like  blue-flame,  indeed. 

"The  thing  is,"  he  said  —  "the  thing  is 
that  she  will  expect  what  I  fear  no  man  alive 
can  give." 

"And  then  ?"  said  Anice,  whispering. 

"She  had  better  die,"  he  said,  curtly — 
"for  her  own  sake,  that  is." 

"I  think  it  would  kill  her,"  Anice  man- 
aged to  say. 

"Oh  no — oh  no,"  said  Dundas;  "the  fibre 
of  that  spirit  is  too  strong  and  too  elastic, 
but  she  would  prefer  death." 

"Then  this  man — you  think?" 

Dundas  checked  his  ragings  to  and  fro,  and 
came  and  stood  beside  her,  with  one  of  his 
sudden  changes. 

"I — don't — know,"  he  said,  slowly,  "but 
I  think — Fm  afraid — there's  not  enough  to 
him.  Just  that,"  he  ended,  and  stood  scowl- 
ing at  her,  "not  enough  to  him." 


IX 


THAT  evening,  as  Trafford  sat  with  Me- 
raud  in  one  of  the  wide  windows  while 
Anice  played,  a  feeling  came  over  him  as  of 
a  return  from  far  places  to  one  exquisitely 
familiar,  a  sensation  as  of  the  homing  spirit 
reaching  its  point  of  rest.  The  gauzy  dark, 
tingling  with  an  infinitude  of  stars,  enfolded 
them  with  a  kind  of  conscious  benison  from 
the  outer  fret  and  striving,  through  which 
he  had  won  to  this  place  of  delicate  with- 
drawal, of  an  aloofness  wrought,  not  from 
pride,  but  from  the  necessity  of  an  alien  and 
keenly  listening  soul.  For,  besides  the  human 
passion  which  drew  him  to  her,  knitted  his 
being  to  her  being,  so  that  he  felt  as  though 
the  roots  of  his  life  had  sprung  from  hers,  he 
experienced  for  her  that  "  love  of  strange 
souls,"  that  attraction  of  mystery  which  is 
like  a  sort  of  divine  vertigo  or  falling  upward 
— that  magnetism  of  the  heights,  which  dis- 
126 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

turbs  and  shakes  the  soul,  yet  draws  it  ever, 
as  a  strong  current  on  its  way  starward 
draws  a  flame.  The  allurement  of  it,  puis- 
sant and  compelling,  troubled  him  as  no 
dream  had  ever  troubled  him.  Here  at  last 
was  reality,  but  a  reality  wrought  both  of 
snow  and  fire,  like  that  Mohammedan  angel 
of  the  seventh  heaven,  to  which  he  had  once 
compared  her  in  his  thought. 

Would  not  that  frustrate  agony  of  love, 
that  effort  to  smite  down  the  implacable  law 
which  decrees  that  two  souls  shall  always  be 
two,  and  never  one  —  would  not  that  im- 
memorial torment  be  greater  here,  even  if 
she  gave  love  for  love — nay,  gave  herself? 
Could  a  human  love,  no  matter  how  divinely 
kindled,  from  what  high  source,  afford  sus- 
tainment,  suffice  with  its  bounded  fire,  a 
spirit  that  seemed  ever  urging  its  way  up- 
ward towards  some  limitless  ether,  beyond 
the  stars  of  earth,  as  towards  its  native 
country  ? 

He  looked  at  the  clear  curve  of  her  brow 
in  the  faint  starshine,  and  something  hie- 
ratic in  its  airy  pallor,  something  priestess- 
like  and  hushed  as  for  secrets  he  could  not 
127 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

share,  chilled  him,  and  drove  back  the  young 
mounting  of  his  blood. 

"'Make  thou  thy  Home  in  That,'"  she 
was  saying,  softly—  "Make  thou  thy  Home 
in  That,  so  shall  thy  past  not  fall  on  thee.' ' 

"My  past  has  already  fallen  on  me,"  said 
Trafford,  in  a  voice  as  low — "my  past  was 
to  know  you,  and  yet  to  feel  that  I  can  never 
know  you." 

"That  makes  me  very  sad,  somehow,"  she 
said,  gently.  "Am  I  so  hard  to  know  ?" 

"Not  in  a  hundred  sweet,  kindly,  friendly 
ways  of  every  day,"  he  answered;  "but  the 
night  seems  to  claim  you  —  to  draw  you 
apart.  As  you  sat  there  just  now  you 
seemed  listening  to  some  voice  that  others 
never  hear — to  something  that  sufficed  you, 
and  that  no  other  would  understand." 

"Yet  you  understand,"  she  said,  and  he 
felt  her  eyes  uoon  him — "you  understand 
even  that." 

"For  you,  not  for  myself,"  he  answered. 

"One  must  have  passed  through  the  fire 
to  understand  the  angel  of  the  fire,"  she  said, 
tenderly.     "Some  day  he  will  speak  to  you 
too,  and  you  will  understand  him." 
128 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"It  is  intolerable  to  think  that  you  have 
suffered,"  said  Traffbrd,  and  his  voice  shook. 

"You  are  very  dear  to  care  so  much,"  she 
answered,  in  that  remote  yet  caressing  tone 
that  he  had  learned  both  to  love  and  dread, 
"but  I  would  not  give  up  any  suffering  that 
I  have  had.  Why,  think  of  being  always 
with  some  one  who  had  never  suffered.  One 
would  walk  on  the  other  side  of  a  great  gulf. 
There  is  nothing  more  arid  than  a  being  who 
has  never  suffered,  or  sinned,  and  struggled 
up  again  and  stumbled  on." 

"You  do  not  stumble  on,"  said  Trafford; 
"you  fly.  That  is  what  gives  me  such  an 
intolerable  sensation  of  loneliness  sometimes 
when  I  am  near  you — near  your  body,  as  I 
am  now — and  your  soul  is  far  off.  I  have 
no  wings.  I  am  just  a  man — just  a  human, 
every-day  man.  Why  should  you  be  mind- 
ful of  me  any  more  than  God  ?" 

"Ah,  you  have  suffered,"  she  said-  "I 
hear  it  in  your  voice  as  well  as  in  your  words. 
But  you  haven't  come  to  the  place  of  revela- 
tion yet  —  every  sorrow  bears  a  revelation 
with  it.  Some  day  you  will  know  that  I  am 
right.  Or,"  she  went  on — hesitating  a  little, 
129 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

in  her  fear  of  touching  too  intimately  a  veiled 
wound — "perhaps  it  is  rather  some  great 
disappointment,  some  disgust  over  the  treach- 
erous tricks  life  plays  us.  And  if  that  is  so, 
still  there  is  comfort,  for  'the  way  to  perfec- 
tion is  through  a  series  of  disgusts,'  in  char- 
acter as  in  art.  Don't  be  vexed  with  me," 
she  ended,  laying  her  hand  on  his  arm  for  a 
moment,  "I  was  preaching  a  little  then, 
wasn't  I  ?" 

"As  if  you  could  say  anything  that  I 
shouldn't  love  to  listen  to!"  he  exclaimed, 
with  an  intensity  so  almost  angry  that  it 
startled  her.  "You  could  take  my  bare  soul 
in  your  hands  and  dissect  it  if  you  wanted 
to,  and  I  should  not  care,"  he  continued, 
vehemently.  "One  feels  so  that  you  would 
always  be  gentle,  always  comprehending,  no 
matter  what  dark  secrets  you  came  upon," 
he  added,  restraining  himself  with  an  effort 
that  made  his  hands  tremble  where  they 
grasped  his  folded  arms.  "  I  think  you  must 
be  a  sort  of  Mother  Confessor  to  everybody, 
aren't  you  ?"  And  he  smiled  very  sadly,  she 
thought. 

"Why  ?  Do  you  want  to  confess  to  me?" 
130 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

she  said,  with  an  inflection  so  exquisitely 
tender  that  it  sent  the  pang  of  tears  through 
his  eyes. 

"No,  I — I  have  nothing  to  confess,"  he 
stammered — "nothing  just  now,  that  is — 
they  would  be  a  dreary,  commonplace  list— 
my  little  sins." 

"Don't  be  bitter,  please,"  she  said,  and 
again  he  felt  her  hand  upon  his  arm. 

"  I  am  not  bitter — not  really,"  he  answered, 
under  his  breath.  "Only  sometimes"  —he 
stopped  and  looked  away  from  her,  up  at 
the  starry  sky,  and  the  softly  swaying  plumes 
of  the  acacias  —  "  sometimes  life  seems  so 
full  and  the  cup  of  one's  own  life  so  empty," 
he  ended. 

"/  know,"  said  Meraud,  in  that  way  she 
had,  "/  know." 

"And  it  might  be  so  full,"  he  said,  pas- 
sionately, "it  might  brim  over  so!" 

"/  know,"  she  said,  again. 

"Oh,"  thought  Trafford,  clenching  his 
teeth  for  self-mastery,  "how  little  you  know! 
How  utterly  nothing  you  know — just  noth- 
ing, nothing  at  all!" 

They    were    silent    for    some    time,    and 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

then  she  said,  suddenly,  bending  towards 
him,  and  searching  his  face  through  the 
dusk: 

"I  am  afraid  that  now  and  then  you  think 
me  fantastic,  mystic — sort  of  un-human.  But 
I  am  not — I  am  not,  indeed.  The  mystic 
side  of  things  does  charm  me,  claim  me  often, 
but  I  feel  very  close  to  the  warm  earth. 
Sometimes,  I  confess  it,  I  long  for  the  flowers 
to  tell  their  secret,  and  for  the  silence  to 
utter  a  great  voice,  but  I  am  knit  to  my 
fellow-beings  with  strong  fibres.  Their  grief 
grieves  me;  their  loves  thrill  me.  Don't 
think  of  me  as  a  would-be  Catherine  of  Siena, 
wooing  visions.  It's  much  simpler  than 
that;  much  humbler  in  the  nobler  mean- 
ing of  the  word.  It's  just  a  trying  to  reach 
the  highest  in  myself,  and  others,  and  all 
things.  I  hear  no  actual  voices.  I  see  no 
colored  visions  painting  the  clear  air.  I 
think  that  it  is  rather  that  I  listen  to  a  voice 
within  myself — my  own  voice,  and  yet  far 
wiser  than  I  am." 

"I  think  of  you  in  no  way  that  is  not 
beautiful,"  said  Trafford.  "  Whatsoever 
things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  pure, 
132 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

whatsoever  things  are  lovely' — to  think  of 
you  is  to  obey  Paul." 

"Thank  you,  dear,"  she  said,  unconscious 
that  she  had  used  the  word. 

Trafford's  heart  gave  a  bound  and  lay  still. 
Was  it  joy  or  pain  to  hear  that  simple  word 
fall  so  unconsciously  from  her  ?  He  could 
not  tell.  There  was  a  beating  through  all 
his  blood  and  spirit  that  made  him  dizzy. 
He  could  not  answer — just  sat  and  looked  at 
her,  from  under  sombre,  down-bent  brows. 

Suddenly  he  saw  her  straighten  herself 
with  a  quick  breath,  and  draw  her  hand 
across  her  eyes. 

"When  you  look  at  me  like  that,"  she  said, 
"as  you  are  looking  now,  I  seem  to  be  about 
to  remember  something — to  remember  you, 
I  think — long  ago — somewhere,  it  was  the 
same — no,  not  quite  the  same — there,  it  has 
gone  now,  but  I've  felt  it  once  or  twice  be- 
fore." 

"Have  you?"  he  said.  He  could  think  of 
nothing  else  to  say  just  then,  that  beating 
as  of  great  wings,  within  and  without,  so 
troubled  him,  so  broke  the  ordered  sequence 
of  his  thought,  he  was  conscious  only  of  the 
'S3 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

hour,  himself,  and  her;  afraid  to  speak,  lest 
his  voice  should  utter  words  that  his  will 
did  not  consent  to.  "  Have  you  ?"  he  man- 
aged to  ask  again,  and  felt  the  dryness  of 
his  lips  in  a  sort  of  shock  at  his  own  weak- 
ness. 

"Yes.  Several  times.  And  once  I  almost 
dreamed — " 

"You  dreamed?     What?" 

"Almost  the  answer  —  the  solution.  I 
seemed  to  be  with  you  somewhere  in  a  place 
far  back  in  time — ages  back,  and  I  woke 
saying,  'Now  I  know.  Now  I  know,'  and 
then — it  was  all  gone.  It  is  strange,  isn't 
it  ?  I  wonder  where  that  place  was  ?  I 
wonder  what  we  were  doing  together  that 
long,  long  while  ago  ?" 

"Perhaps,"  said  Traffbrd — his  throat  was 
dry  also  now,  and  he  spoke  in  an  odd,  husky 
voice — "perhaps  we  were — just  happy  to- 
gether ?" 

"Perhaps  so,"  she  said,  while  something 
in  her  quivered  suddenly — awake,  startled — 
though  her  own  voice  was  quite  steady. 

"Dont  you  think  that  we  might  have 
been  very  happy  together  in  that  far 
'34 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

place  ?"  he  asked,  still  in  that  strange 
voice. 

"Perhaps  so,"  she  said  again,  and  she  was 
whispering  now,  his  voice  and  eyes  held  so 
strange  a  spell  for  her  in  that  faint  gloom. 

"Is  it  always  to  be  'perhaps,'  only  *  per- 
haps'?" he  asked,  whispering  too.  "Is  it 
never  to  be  anything  more  than  that  ?  Never, 
as  long  as  I  live — as  long  as  you  live  ?  Oh, 
you  know!  You  know!"  he  said,  and  bent 
down  his  face  suddenly  on  her  two  hands, 
shaking  from  head  to  foot. 

She  sat  gazing  down  at  him,  still  as  death, 
her  breath  inheld  —  her  very  being  inheld. 
She  felt  his  breath  and  lips  upon  her  hand, 
and  saw  the  dark  shining  of  his  hair  as  in  a 
dream,  and  in  that  dream  was  the  feeling 
of  remembrance  —  of  a  riddle  about  to  be 
solved — of  himself  and  herself,  as  they  had 
been  before,  long  and  long  ago,  and  then 
trembling  took  her  inwardly  —  a  great  fear 
came  upon  her  and  a  sudden  anguish. 

"Dear,"  she  whispered—  "oh,  my  dear! 
No,  I  did  not  know!  I  did  not — I  did  not!" 

They  found  themselves   walking  forward 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

into  the  warm  dark,  hand  locked  in  hand, 
like  two  bewildered  children  fleeing  from 
some  vague  shape  in  a  fateful  house.  On 
and  on  they  went,  silent,  shaken;  and  the 
constellations  seemed  conspirators  of  fate — • 
their  fate;  and  the  night  to  be  brooding  over 
destiny — their  destiny.  "I  did  not  know- 
she  said  again,  at  last — "oh,  I  did  not!  I 
did  not—  And  it  was  like  a  sort  of  sobbing 
without  tears.  "  I  have  hurt  you  —  and  I 
wanted  so  to  help  you  —  and  I  have  only 
hurt  you." 

He  turned  suddenly,  and  lifted  her  hands 
against  his  breast  and  held  them  there. 
They  could  only  see,  for  the  soft  gloom,  that 
each  other's  faces  were  very  white. 

"Listen,  dearest,"  he  said,  "listen  to  me:  I 
swear  to  you  that  you  have  not  hurt  me — you 
could  not  hurt  me.  I  swear  to  you  that  to 
have  known  you — just  to  have  known  you, 
is  to  have  climbed  high.  I  swear  to  you — 
very  solemnly,  that  all  my  life  shall  be  bet- 
ter, and  purer,  and  greater  just  for  having 
known  you.  And  I  tell  you — yes,  I  tell  you," 
his  voice  broke  and  stopped  for  an  instant, 
"that  I  always  knew  there  was  no  hope  in 
136 


THE    GOLDEN    ROSE 

it  —  from  the  very  first  I  knew  that.  Why 
should  you  love  me  ?  Great  God!  and  what 
must  love  mean  to  you,  after — 

"  It  has  been  blasphemed  —  it  has  been 
desecrated — for  me,"  she  whispered.  And 
she  trembled  so  that  he  had  to  hold  her  up 
as  though  she  had  been  a  child. 

"Oh,  my  dearest,"  he  said,  with  anguish, 
"do  you  think  I  don't  know  ?  Do  you  think 
I  haven't  understood  ?" 

"You  always  understand  —  always  —  al- 
ways." 

"Then  don't  think  that  I  shall  not  under- 
stand now.  You  will  let  me  love  you — afar 
off,  as  it  were — in  my  own  way.  It  shall  not 
grieve  you,  it  shall  not  disturb  your  sweet 
life.  All  my  life  I  have  waited  for  it,  and  it 
has  come.  And  it  is  beyond  all  that  I  have 
ever  dreamed  or  hoped — as  you  are — as  you 
are." 

How  that  night  passed  for  her,  from 
minute  to  minute  and  from  hour  to  hour, 
Meraud  never  knew,  for  she  seemed  caught 
up  and  woven,  living,  into  a  strange  tapestry 
of  dreams,  whereon  the  figures  moved  and 
'37 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

spoke,  only  she,  living,  could  not  reply  nor 
free  herself  from  that  strong  web.  And  now 
it  seemed  to  her  that  all  these  pale,  fantastic 
images  were  Greek,  and  now  delicate,  quaint 
forms  blown  upon  the  windy  arras  from  some 
Court  of  Love  in  old  Provence.  Now  all 
about  her  wreathed  and  wound  the  slight 
brown  limbs  that  she  had  learned  to  know 
in  pictures  of  ancient  Egypt,  gleaming 
through  pale  tissues,  lifted  against  banded 
colors  and  the  red-gold  of  strange  harps  and 
trumpets.  Or,  from  the  immemorial  Orient, 
from  the  great  Aryan  plain,  and  from  that 
higher,  less  known  waste  above  the  very 
Himalayas  —  nay,  from  the  lost  continent 
itself,  from  stupendous  Atlantis,  walled  in 
gold  and  ivory  and  overruled  by  the  Brothers 
of  the  Dark  Face — wild  shapes  bore  down 
upon  her,  crying:  "Do  you  remember?  Do 
you  remember  ?  I,  and  I,  and  I  was  there 
with  you." 

And  ever  as  she  neared  some  mystery, 
ever  as  she  fled  some  nameless  peril,  it  was 
his  face  that  looked  out  at  her  for  an  instant, 
from  unfamiliar  head-gear,  strange  helmets, 
bands  of  curiously  wrought  metal,  folds  of 
138 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

bright  painted  stuffs,  woven  only  in  this  place 
of  dreams.  But  through  it  all  they  met  and 
parted,  met  and  parted,  in  joy,  in  sorrow, 
in  strange  anger,  in  stranger  coldness,  in 
love  unspeakable  —  that  wild  love  that  is 
only  known  to  dreams,  whether  of  waking 
or  sleeping. 

Then  at  last,  towards  dawn,  she  found 
herself  in  an  old  familiar  city  by  the  sea,  but 
familiar  only  to  her  dreams,  so  that  she  said, 
within  her  dream,  "Now  I  am  dreaming,  for  I 
am  in  this  town  again—  And  in  her  dream 
she  sighed  wearily  and  strove  to  awake,  for 
she  knew  that  she  must  run  and  run  through 
all  those  empty  streets,  and  far  along  that 
lovely,  desolate  shore,  seeking,  seeking,  al- 
ways seeking  something,  some  one,  that  she 
never  found;  and  with  laboring  heart  and 
shortened  breath  she  set  out  upon  her 
strange,  fruitless  race,  through  the  vast,  de- 
serted city,  in  at  echoing  temples  where  the 
ashes  lay  pale  upon  the  altars  and  the 
statues  were  cast  down,  through  wild  gardens 
heavy  with  that  scent  of  dreams  that  over- 
came her  and  filled  her  soul  with  dread,  past 
the  huge  porphyry  quays  and  out  upon  the 
'39 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

sea-shore,  gasping,  stumbling,  her  eyes  dark- 
ened, the  flame  of  life  within  her  burned  down 
to  its  blue  core — and  then — she  saw  him 
coming  towards  her,  no  more  strange,  no 
more  divided  from  her  by  long-gone  fiats 
or  the  cunning  mesh  of  destiny,  but  fashioned 
as  it  were  of  the  very  stuff  of  which  her  heart 
was  fashioned,  shaped  to  the  same  end,  born 
for  the  same  fruition.  And  in  her  dream, 
in  which  she  knew  that  she  was  dreaming, 
he  held  out  his  arms  and  gathered  her  to  him, 
and  bent  down  his  cheek  on  hers,  saying: 
"You  are  safe  dearest,  you  are  safe!" 
And  she  cried  out:  ''Now  I  remember! 
Now  I  remember!" 

And  as  his  kiss  struck  through  her  to  her 
very  life  she  awoke  in  the  clear  flush  of  dawn 
at  Kingsweather. 


X 


THE  next  morning,  before  she  was  dressed, 
a  note  was  brought  to  her  from  Traf- 
ford.  Locking  her  door,  she  sat  with  closed 
eyes  for  some  moments  holding  the  envelope 
in  her  hands,  a  sort  of  vortex  of  dispersed 
personality  whirling  around  her.  Then  she 
read: 

"DEAREST  (for  you  won't  grudge  my  calling 
you  that — I  know  your  soul  to  that  extent,  at 
least),  I  am  going  away." 

The  paper  shook  in  her  hands,  and  she  sat 
gazing  at  the  last  sentence,  drawn  again  to 
her  own  centre  by  an  acute  pang  of  con- 
scious pain.  She  let  the  note  fall  upon  her 
lap,  and  covered  her  face  with  both  hands. 
"Oh,"  she  thought,  "who  am  I?  What 
am  I  ?  Where  is  myself  that  I  know — my 
true  self?  What  is  this  that  has  come  upon 
me  ?"  And  through  all  her  being  she  trem- 
141 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

bled  like  a  flame  of  spirit  in  the  breath  of 
some  recreative  divinity.  "Going  away." 
Was  he  going  away,  and  did  it  mean  so 
much  to  her  that  the  sources  of  her  life 
seemed  to  flow  after  him  in  that  going  ? 
She  took  up  the  sheet  of  note-paper  again 
and  read  on: 

"I  am  going  back  to  Price's  place  for  a  day,  for 
two  days,  to  stay  there  until  I  return  to  the  North 
if  you  wish  it.  My  one  desire  in  life  is  to  do  as 
you  wish  about  this  as  about  all  things.  You  will 
send  me  word  if  you  wish  to  see  me  again — oh,  I 
hope  that  you  will  wish  it,  dearest,  dearest!  I  will 
not  trouble  you.  I  will  not  grieve  you.  But  you 
must  know  that  those  who  love  you  have  need  of 
you — have  an  infinite  need  of  you.  Just  to  be  near 
you,  to  look  into  your  eyes,  to  hear  your  voice,  to 
feel  that  invisible  wonder  of  your  presence  which 
is  more  you  than  eyes  or  voice  or  even  words. 
When  you  read  this  I  shall  be  gone;  but  if  you 
can,  if  you  will,  let  me  see  you  once  more." 

She  dressed  like  a  somnambulist,  con- 
scious of  a  dull,  selfish  gladness  that  Dinky 
had  told  her  of  Anice's  being  in  bed  with  one 
of  her  headaches.  She  was  sorry  for  her, 
she  must  be  sorry  for  her,  but  she  craved  to 
142 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

be  alone  as  the  blind  crave  light.  Then,  only 
stopping  to  swallow  a  cup  of  tea  that  scalded 
her  throat,  although  she  did  not  know  it,  she 
went  out  into  the  wide  air — went  out  from 
the  smothering  walls  to  breathe  mentally,  to 
repossess  herself  of  herself,  as  it  were,  with 
nothing  more  limiting  above  her  than  the 
clear  June  sky.  And  as  she  sought  to  still 
her  mind,  to  bring  it  under  the  dominion  of 
her  will,  myriads  of  unbidden  thoughts  beat 
against  her  consciousness  as  wasps  beat 
against  a  window-pane  in  autumn.  And 
among  them  the  words  of  Arjuna,  in  the  book 
that  she  most  loved,  came  back  to  her:  "For 
the  mind  is  verily  restless,  O  Krishna.  I 
deem  it  as  hard  to  curb  as  the  wind."  And 
then  the  answer:  "Yet  it  may  be  curbed  by 
constant  practice  and  by  indifference."  "  By 
indifference."  Ah,  that  was  it;  by  detach- 
ment, by  the  withdrawal  of  desire  from  the 
ever-changing  pageant  of  the  mutable — from 
all  objects  that  were  born  to  die  within  the 
strait  passage  of  one  little  life.  She  had 
prayed  for  humility  in  vain.  She  had  been 
too  sure.  "It  is  a  lesson,"  she  told  herself— 
"  it  is  a  lesson  that  I  must  learn  aright.  This 
H3 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

bewilderment  will  pass,  and  then — and  then 
I  can  read  it  clearly."  And  again  words 
came  to  her  from  out  of  the  ancient  v/isdom : 
"Shila,  the  key  of  harmony  in  word  and  act, 
the  key  that  counterbalances  the  cause  and 
the  effect,  and  leaves  no  further  room  for 
Karmic  action."  And  she  remembered  how 
she  had  held  that  other  key  in  her  heart  of 
hearts,  as  in  a  casket,  the  key  "Dana,"  the 
"golden  key  of  charity  and  love  immortal," 
and  had  thought  that  all  was  well,  and  had 
forgot  the  other  gates  upon  that  upward  way 
"as  hard  to  tread  as  the  edge  of  a  razor," 
and  the  keys  that  opened  them  —  had  for- 
got, if  only  for  a  moment,  the  keen  strug- 
gles foretold,  the  stress,  the  anguish  which 
must  attend  each  conquered  stage  upon  that 
path. 

"I  was  too  sure;  I  felt  too  safe,"  she  said, 
again.  "  But  this — this—  And  she  thought 
of  the  old  Chaldean  and  his  terrible  cry: 
"The  thing  that  I  greatly  feared  has  come 
upon  me!" 

White-lipped  and  still,  she  sat,  under  a 
great  poplar,  and  the  immemorial  struggle 
went  on,  as  in  an  infinitely  vaster  sense  it  had 
144 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

endured  under  the  Indian  Bo-tree,  so  many 
centuries   ago. 

Not  only  the  present,  but  the  past,  surged 
about  her,  lifting  a  horrid  wreckage  of  un- 
speakable memories  on  its  turgid  crests, 
covering  her  with  the  spume  of  polluted  ideals, 
of  fair  hopes  frayed  and  muddied,  of  dreams 
rent  apart,  or  drawn  as  masks  over  mouthing 
visages  of  sensuality,  crowned  with  wreaths 
of  fetid  and  abominable  flowers.  And  now 
those  voices,  the  august  and  re  -  echoing 
voices  of  the  oracle  of  books,  dinned  in  her 
ears,  things  apt  arid  terrible;  living  words, 
vibrant  as  with  a  strange,  continuing  life 
inherited  from  the  men  who  had  written 
them.  She  thought  of  her  girlhood,  offered 
up  to  the  Minotaur  of  Marriage  through  her 
libertine  cousin,  and  immediately  the  vile 
and  ferocious  glee  of  Remy  de  Gourmont's 
Satan  dinned  in  her  mind's  ear:  " En  fin— 
et  ceci  sera  ires  amusant,  je  veillerai  comme 
un  ange,  sur  leur  enhance  pollute,  et  quand  la 
lignee  de  Lilith  aura  d'evirilise  la  puberte  des 
males,  je  leur  donnerai  des  vierges." 

Love  ?    Love  ?    What    had   that   love    of 
H5 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

man  and  woman  meant  for  her  ?  With  her 
quick,  visualizing  fancy,  she  saw  before  her 
the  god  Eros,  not  clothed  on  with  night  and 
stars,  as  in  the  lovely  legend  of  Aupuleus, 
but  lithe  and  bright  and  naked,  in  a  glare  of 
scented  torches,  stripping  the  frail  wings 
from  Psyche's  shoulders,  and  stooping  to  kiss 
the  new-made  wounds  with  a  terrible  avidity 
of  novel  pleasure. 

Love  ?  Love  ?  The  word  had  a  fierce 
sound  of  mocking  for  her  ears — the  sound 
as  of  the  laughter  of  a  sinister,  earth-born 
deity,  Pan  himself,  perchance,  who,  as  a 
fisher  of  men  in  some  darkly  inverted  sense, 
flings  out  this  magic  bait,  wherein  the 
poisoned  barb  is  so  exquisitely  concealed, 
and  finds  food  for  mirth  in  the  helpless 
writhings  of  his  prey. 

Had  she  buried  herself  fathoms  deep  in 
lovely,  sexless  thoughts,  had  she  shut  out  the 
voice  of  the  world  with  its  ever-swelling  cry 
of  those  who  marry  and  are  given  in  mar- 
riage, of  those  who  sell  themselves  or  are 
sold  in  the  market-place,  had  she  calmed 
and  stilled  and  purified  her  soul  for  this,  that, 
in  the  end,  Love  should  sweep  down  upon 
146 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

her  and  let  her  see  her  image  in  his  eyes  as 
common  clay  ? 

"That  is  not  love!"  she  cried  in  despera- 
tion, panting,  at  bay  before  her  own  spirit. 
"I  could  not  love  with  that  love — he  could 
not  love  me  with  such  love.  'As  a  man 
thinketh  in  his  heart  so  is  he/  and  in  my 
heart  I  loathe  that  love,  the  love  that  is  only 
a  harlot  wearing  a  bridal  veil." 

And  she  bowed  down  her  head,  and 
trembled  exceedingly,  and  became,  as  it 
were,  a  living  centre  of  prayer  for  light — for 
light. 

And  then,  out  of  the  seeming  solid  dark 
about  her,  the  voices  of  the  books  began  again 
to  speak,  but  this  time  they  were  clear  and 
strangely  sweet:  lines  from  the  "Vita  Nuova," 
from  "Paracelsus,"  from  the  sonnets  of 
Michelangelo,  and  from  these,  finally,  some 
words  that  drove  her  to  her  feet,  with  face 
uplifted,  and  eyes  alight:  "La  dove  io  t'amai 
primal 

"Ah,  he  knew,"  she  thought  with  a  great 

exultation,  that  was  like  a  wind  in  her  spirit's 

wings,    "he   knew!     'There   where    I    loved 

thee  first,'  there  in  that  far  place.     He  're- 

147 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

membered'  as  I  do.  If  we  could  only  hold 
that  love,  if  we  could  only  keep  it  as  it  was 
there — beautiful,  golden,  a  flame,  pure.  "La 
dove  10  t'amai  prtma." 

She  stood  where  she  had  risen  to  her  feet, 
and  all  about  her  the  day  seemed  suddenly 
aware  and  friendly — to  be  trying  to  com- 
municate some  high  mystery  of  life,  through 
tree  and  flower,  and  the  low-flying,  un- 
frightened  birds.  "Venus  Uranus,"  she 
thought— "Venus  Uranus.  There  is  a  Venus 
of  the  heaven  as  of  the  earth,  of  the  clear 
heights  as  of  the  valley."  And  she  recalled 
the  lovely,  wooing  lines: 

"Come  down,  O  Maid,   from  yonder  mountain 

height, 
For  love  is  of  the  valley — come  thou  down." 

"Ah,  no,"  she  thought.  "Ah,  no,  I  will 
not  go  down  to  him;  he  shall  come  up  to 
me." 

Then,    startled,    she    looked    at    her    own 

hand,  which  she  had  put  before  her  eyes  for 

a  moment,  because  it  was  wet  with  tears— 

not  the  sterile  tears  of  disillusion,  but  tears 

148 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

warm  and  sweet  as  from  the  hidden  source 
of  a  celestial  mystery. 

He  came  back  on  the  evening  of  the 
second  day,  riding  late  into  the  pungent 
sweetness  of  the  box  alleys,  as  she  had  asked 
him  to,  and  she  was  there  to  meet  him, 
standing  where  they  had  parted  under  the 
stars.  He  gave  his  horse  to  the  little  negro 
that  she  had  brought  with  her  for  the  pur- 
pose, and  they  stood  for  a  while,  silent,  just 
feeling  each  other's  nearness  with  a  poignancy 
which  contact  does  not  hold  for  most.  Then 
at  last  the  man  spoke,  under  his  breath, 
haltingly : 

"Dearest,"  he  said — "dearest — dearest." 

"I  missed  you  so,"  she  faltered,  and  he 
could  just  catch  the  words. 

"And  I,"  he  said.     "And  I." 

The  soft  air  breathed  between  them.  It  was 
as  if  a  spirit  watched  with  them.  And  then : 

"I  dreamed  of  you,"  she  whispered.  "All 
that  night — all  last  night — I  dreamed  that  I 
met  you  again  in  far-off  places,  where  we  had 
been  together  long  ago — long  ago — and  I — I 
remembered." 

149 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"You  remembered?" 

"I  was  running,  running  from  some  great 
danger,  looking  for  some  one  —  as  I  had 
looked  so  often.  And  then — I  found — you. 
And  you  said,  'You  are  safe,  dearest,' — and 
then — I  remembered." 

"And  you — cared  too — a  little?" 

"Oh,  my  dear —  '  she  said,  her  hands 
against  her  heart,  "Oh.  my  dear,  'La  dove  io 
f  amai  pnma"' 

He  knelt  down  before  her,  as  simply  as 
Aucassin  would  have  knelt  to  Nicolette,  and 
hid  his  face  in  the  sweet,  thin  folds  of  her 
white  gown,  and  she  put  one  hand  upon  his 
head  and  felt  him  trembling  as  he  had 
trembled  that  night  when  his  love  broke  from 
him  against  his  will. 

"Come,"  she  said  then,  bending  over  him, 
"come,  let  us  go  together  —  far  from  the 
house  —  from  every  one.  I  must  talk  witfi 
you — I  must  tell  you." 

They  went  down  into  the  lower  garden 
and  sat  beside  the  old  moon-dial,  under  a 
white  oleander,  and  forever  after  its  ethereal 
blossoms  and  perfume,  as  from  another  star, 
meant  only  Meraud  to  him,  and  Meraud's 
150 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

voice  speaking  out  of  the  soft  night,  with  its 
wafts  of  new-cut  grass  and  flowers. 

"Where  to  begin?"  she  said,  sighing. 
"Where  to  begin?" 

"There  is  no  beginning,  as  there  will  be 
no  ending,  dearest.  Say  what  first  comes  to 
you — I  will  understand." 

"Ah,  it  is  that  first  of  all.  You  understand 
as  no  one  but  God  has  ever  understood — I 
think  He  sent  you  to  me — now.  But  listen — 
listen.  I  must  not  mislead  you.  If  I  hurt 
you,  forgive  me — oh,  forgive  me  beforehand!" 
And  her  voice  quivered  and  broke  with  an 
indescribable  thrill  of  dread. 

"You  know  that  I  am  yours  as  your  own 
life  is — how  should  I  forgive  you  ?  That 
hurts,"  he  said — "that  you  should  ask  me  to 
forgive  you  anything." 

"But  this — you  do  not  know — I — I  can- 
not love  you  as  you  would  have  me  love  you — 
Wait,  wait,"  she  hastened  on.  "You  have 
heard — you  know — that  love,  the  love  that 
— that  marries — "  She  broke  down  and  hid 
her  face  in  her  two  hands,  and  he  heard  her 
in-held  sobs. 

"Dearest,"   he  said,   shaken  to  the  core, 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"I  understand — don't  try  to  tell  me  things— 
I  understand." 

"  I  can  never  marry  again,"  she  whispered, 
"I  will  never  marry  again,  not  if  I  loved  a 
man  more  than  any  earth-born  creature  ever 
loved — not  if  it  killed  him — and  me — never 
— never." 

"My  sweet,"  he  said,  and  he  leaned  and 
drew  down  her  hands  from  before  her  face  and 
held  them  gently  in  his  own,  "do  you  think 
that  you  would  care  for  me  at  all,  even  the 
little  that  you  do  care,  if  you  felt  that  quality 
in  my  love  for  you — a  love  that  would  marry 
you  against  your  will,  that  would  wish  to 
marry  you  against  some  divine  instinct  in 
that  great  soul  of  yours,  which  is  really  you  ? 
Do  you  think  that  I  would  have  dared  to 
offer  you  a  common,  every  -  day,  greedy, 
mere-man's  love  like  that  ?  If  there  is  pas- 
sion in  my  love  for  you,  you  will  understand, 
we  are  young,  and  oh!  you  are  strangely, 
divinely  beautiful — but  my  passion  for  you 
is  not  an  appetite,  not  a  hunger.  I  cannot 
explain  it  to  you  or  to  myself  as  I  would,  but 
I  swear  to  you  that  it  is  more  of  the  spirit 
than  of  the  flesh — I  swear  that  to  you,  dearest." 
152 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"And,"  she  said,  trembling,  a  look  of  awe 
in  her  great  eyes,  "you  would  be  willing  to 
love  me — like  that  ?  Only  like  that  ?" 

"My  sweet,  my  sweet,"  he  answered,  and 
he  gave  a  little  low  laugh  that  was  infinitely 
tender,  "do  you  think  that  my  ' willing'  has 
anything  to  do  with  my  love  for  you  ?" 

"Oh!"  she  said,  "oh!  I  did  not  know  that 
a  man  lived  like  you!"  And  she  drew  away 
her  hands  from  his  and  covered  her  face  again. 

"Why,  is  it  so  great  a  thing,"  he  asked, 
"that  I  should  count  it  a  miracle  of  God 
that  you  should  want  me  to  love  you  at  all, 
that  you  should  care  too,  if  ever  so  little  ? 
You  must  have  known  less  than  men,  my 
sweet." 

"No,  but  you  are  more,"  she  said,  and  put 
back  her  hand  in  his.  "And — and  do  not 
keep  saying  that  I  'care  a  little';  I — I  don't 
think  I  know  yet  myself  how — very  much  I 
— care.  But  you  will  need  great  patience 
with  me — I  have  been  very  ill  with  this 
disease  of  life,"  she  ended,  and  smiled  in  a 
way  that  tore  his  heart. 

"Oh,  my  dearest!"  he  cried,  "there  is  heal- 
ing— believe  me,  there  is  healing." 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

She  was  looking  past  him — up  at  the  majes- 
tic silence  of  the  stars,  and  in  a  low  voice, 
breaking  now  and  then,  she  said: 

' '  He  hath  sent  me  to  bind  up  the  broken- 
hearted, to  proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives, 
and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that 
are  bound — to  give  unto  them  beauty  for 
ashes,  the  oil  of  joy  for  mourning,  the  gar- 
ment of  praise  for  the  spirit  of  heaviness.* 
I  thought  that  would  come  afterwards — there 
— and  you  have  brought  it  to  me — here,  on 
this  mad  earth.  I  think  we  are  in  the  heart 
of  some  golden  miracle.  If  the  heaven 
opened  and  shrivelled  like  a  scroll  I  could  not 
be  amazed — now.  It  would  be  a  little,  little 
thing  to  what  you  have  done  for  me." 

"Oh,"  he  cried,  "you  humble  me;  you 
humble  me  to  the  very  dust!" 

"It  is  to  the  star-dust,  then,"  she  said, 
with  another  of  those  tired,  wistful  smiles 
that  made  him  so  yearn  over  her.  "Listen, 
and  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is  that  you  have 
done  for  me.  I  had  a  dear  and  wonder- 
ful friend  once,  and  when  she  lay  dying 
she  said  many  beautiful  things,  such  as  one 
likes  to  think  of  as  coming  from  those  who 
'54 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

stand  within  that  doorway,  but  that  one 
rarely  hears.  And,  among  other  things,  she 
opened  her  eyes  in  a  strange,  sudden  way  on 
mine,  and  said  these  words:  'Always  the 
painted  apple,  never  the  golden  rose.'  I  said: 
'  Genevieve,  who  said  that  ?  Rossetti  ?'  And 
she  smiled  and  said:  'No;  Genevieve.'  And 
a  little  while  after  she  died.  And  then, 
later,  when  —  when  I  had  —  lived  more,  I 
felt  that  I  knew  what  she  meant.  But 
to-night  —  oh,  to-night,"  she  cried,  with  a 
sudden  white  ecstasy,  bending  her  head  be- 
fore he  could  stop  her,  and  laying  her  cheek 
upon  his  hands,  "you  have  given  me  the 
golden  rose! — you  have  given  me  the  golden 
rose!" 


XI 


THEY  entered  from  that  night  into  a 
state  of  being  which  some  great  Trou- 
vere  might  have  dreamed  of — Gaucelm  Fay- 
dit,  during  his  long  servitude  of  Marie  de 
Ventadour,  or  Pierre  Vidal,  yearning  out  the 
sad,  vain  years  in  fruitless  love  of  Adalais  de 
Baux.  It  was  a  place  of  breathless  beauty, 
of  wild  spring  lightning  that  fused  flesh  and 
spirit,  and  made  of  love  the  exquisite  symbol 
of  some  diviner,  more  enraptured  love  yet 
to  be  revealed — a  "  passion  that  left  the  earth 
to  lose  itself  in  the  sky,"  the  ideal,  balancing, 
with  iridescent  wings  outspread,  on  the  keen 
edge  of  the  real. 

The  heavy  veil  of  life,  so  stiffly  solemn, 
with  its  intercoiled  design  of  skull  and 
flower,  parted,  as  it  were,  and  struck  them 
joyously  blind  with  its  ray  from  further  and 
half-imagined  mysteries,  from  "the  super- 
celestial  fire  that  loves,"  according  to  Pico 
156 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

della  Mirandola.  All  that  was  "withheld, 
occult,  untrod "  seemed  to  reveal  itself,  to 
unfold  like  great  doors  of  gold  swinging  back 
upon  a  more  spacious  and  illumined  world, 
where  love's  flame  refreshed  like  water,  and 
love's  touch  called  to  the  spirit  that  its  life 
is  more  vivid  than  the  body's  life. 

All  day  long  they  revelled,  like  two  children, 
exquisitely  intimate  and  attuned,  in  the  end- 
less, sweet,  trivial  accidents  of  every  day. 
A  ride,  in  uncertain  weather,  with  its  last 
wild  race-  before  pursuing  thunder-clouds, 
was  a  true  adventure;  a  book,  read  together, 
with  her  hand  in  his,  a  wonderful  new  light 
on  life;  the  searching  out  in  the  attic  of  old, 
yellowed  love-letters,  to  see  whether  any  of 
her  forebears  had  loved  perhaps  a  tithe  as 
she  loved,  a  page  from  old  romance,  all  blue 
and  gold  and  crimson  with  the  illuminations 
of  their  mingled  fancy.  They  had  their 
wise-foolish  children's  games  too.  One  day 
she  forced  him,  with  mystic  threats  and  very 
human  coaxings,  to  bring  her  a  sock  to  darn, 
and  with  her  beautiful,  agile  fingers,  much 
delayed  by  the  kisses  and  laughter  that  fell 
upon  them,  she  seriously  darned  a  very  un- 
157 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

impressive  hole.  They  came  home  from 
thirsty  explorations  of  wood  and  orchard, 
and  drank  milk  together  out  of  her  silver 
mug  and  Anice's,  standing  in  the  dairy  door, 
and  helping  themselves  from  the  great 
crocks.  They  looked  at  pictures  of  far 
countries,  with  their  heads  together,  and 
told  each  other  wondrous  tales  of  the  journeys 
they  would  one  day  take,  and  they  laughed 
at  nothing,  and  at  everything,  and  at  each 
other,  as  is  the  way  of  children  when  they 
are  entirely  happy. 

Then  when  night  came — the  beautiful,  pale, 
starry,  summer  night,  than  which  Provence 
never  saw  lovelier — they  laid  aside  this  mood 
like  a  sweet,  homely  garment,  and  put  upon 
them  the  more  sumptuous  robes  of  that 
passion  which  could  call  the  stars  to  witness. 
And  all  this  while  the  great  Sphinx  whose 
forehead  is  the  sky,  and  whose  breast  the 
earth,  and  who  has  underneath  her  vast 
paws  the  swarms  of  living  creatures,  beast 
and  man,  gazed  out  with  blind  yet  sagacious 
eyes  into  the  void,  and  put  no  riddle  to  their 
hearts. 

And  one  night  it  happened  that  as  they 
158 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

stood  together  he  fastened  in  her  hair  some 
of  the  white  roses  that  she  loved,  and  the 
touch  of  that  delicate  web,  warm  with  her 
life,  smote  suddenly  through  him  with  an  un- 
speakable longing  to  take  her  in  his  arms 
and  kiss  her  mouth  as  lovers  kiss.  And  she 
felt  him  shiver,  and  said : 

"What  is  it?     Are  you  cold?" 

And  he  answered,  "No — oh,  no  dearest! 
Not  cold." 

And  she  saw  that  he  was  smiling  in  the 
soft  dusk,  and  hung  down  her  head  like  any 
little  maid  and  smiled  too,  nervously,  for  she 
had  read  his  thought  almost  as  she  had 
spoken  to  him. 

Then  he  said,  very  low:  "I  would  kiss 
your  mouth,  Meraud."  And  as  she  did  not 
move  or  answer,  he  cried,  passionately: 
"  Oh,  cannot  you  trust  me  ?  I  have  waited 
all  these  years!  I  have  really  waited,  dear- 
est!" 

Then  she  went  to  him,  and  he  gathered  her 
to  his  heart  as  in  her  dream,  and  kissed 
her,  and  she  felt  safe  with  him  as  in  her 
dream.  There  is  that  one  kiss  and  there 
is  no  other,  and  they  only  may  know  it  who 
159 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

have  consecrated  their  lives  to  that  moment. 
Her  sensitive  lips  curled  and  quivered  under 
his  like  conscious  flowers  under  a  flame,  and 
her  spirit  rushed  through  them  to  his  spirit 
and  made  all  pure. 

"Oh!"  the  thought  leaped  through  her, 
"these  lips  will  never  give  me  the  dire  kiss 
of  habit.  This  is  passion,  but  passion  of  the 
skies,  not  of  the  earth;  the  supreme  passion, 
the  passion  of  sunlight  and  lightning,  of  utter 
beauty,  and  of  eyes  meeting  eyes  unashamed." 

"This  is  our  marriage,"  he  whispered,  as 
they  trembled  together,  shaken  as  by  one 
life.  "This  is  our  beautiful,  beautiful  mar- 
riage, and  the  Universe  cannot  divorce  us." 
For  he  had  been  caught  up  as  in  a  whirlwind 
of  celestial  fire,  into  the  high  spaces  of  her 
soul,  and  saw  with  her  vision,  thought  with 
her  mind,  thrilled  with  her  undaunted  spirit 
at  the  contact  of  an  ideal  caught  and  held, 
if  only  for  an  instant,  between  the  very 
paws  of  the  great  Sphinx  who  as  yet  delayed 
her  riddling. 

Anice   watched,   with    a    kind   of  patient 
wonder,  this  bourgeoning  of  Meraud's  nat- 
160 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

ure — this  joyousness,  reckless  and  profuse,  like 
the  blossoming  of  peach-trees  in  mild  days 
of  a  Virginia  winter,  a  lavish  flinging  forth 
of  present  life,  as  it  were,  in  defiance  of  later 
frosts  that  might  kill  or  wither.  She  asked 
no  questions,  either  with  voice  or  eyes, 
knowing  well  that  in  the  end  her  friend  of 
many  years  would  tell  her  all  out  of  the  very 
fulness  of  her  soul.  And  this  came  to  pass, 
for  as  they  sat  together  one  night  in  their 
window,  with  candles  blown  out,  combing 
their  long  hair  together,  as  women  do, 
Meraud  told  her,  half  with  pauses  and  half 
with  words,  of  the  wonder  that  had  come  into 
her  life. 

"Oh,  is  it  not  beautiful!"  she  ended.  "Is 
it  not  like  some  white  miracle  that  God  has 
kept,  to  pay  me  for  the  blackness  of  my 
youth — to  blot  it  out  as  light  blots  out  dark- 
ness ?" 

And  Anice,  tender,  all  sympathy,  yet  some- 
how foreboding,  and  filled  with  a  sense  of  the 
practical  thorniness  of  life,  had  answered: 

"Yes,  my  darling,  beautiful  as  one  of  your 
own  dreams,  but — ' 

"'But,'  'but.'  Oh,  Anice,  don't  say  'but' 
161 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

when  all  my  soul  is  crying  'Evoe!'  to  life. 
You  can't  think  of  more  'huts'  than  I  have 
thought  of — than  the  great,  crass,  knowing, 
stupid  world  would  think  of.  Why,  we 
have  talked  of  them  together  —  he  and  I; 
that  will  show  you  how  strangely  one  we 
are.  And  to-day — let  me  show  you.  Here 
it  is.  We  read  this  together,  and  it  seemed 
our  very  thoughts  put  into  words." 

She  lighted  a  little  taper  for  sealing  letters, 
on  a  table  near  by,  and  read  the  following 
extract  aloud: 

' '  But  often  the  higher  life  is  only  possible 
at  all  on  condition  of  the  selection  of  that 
in  which  one's  motive  is  native  and  strong; 
and  this  selection  involves  the  renunciation 
of  a  crown  reserved  for  others.'  Oh,  don't 
you  see,  Anice?"  she  cried,  laying  down  the 
book,  and  blowing  out  the  taper  again,  that 
they  might  talk  more  at  ease  in  the  friendly 
darkness.  "We  have  our  double  diadem. 
We  don't  want  the  'crowns  reserved  for 
others.'  Neither  of  us  do  —  there  is  the 
miracle  of  it.  Oh,  Anice!  oh,  Anice!  did 
you  think  there  could  be  a  man  like  that  ?" 

"But,  darling,"  the  other  said,  softly,  "we 
162 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

have  to  live  in  a  world  that  is  real,  not  ideal. 
There  are  a  hundred  instincts,  a  hundred 
ties,  that— 

"You  are  thinking  of  all  that  he  will  miss 
in  loving  me,"  said  Meraud,  in  a  hushed 
voice.  "Do  you  suppose  that  I  have  not 
thought  of  that,  too  ?  The  ghosts  of  little 
children  that  have  never  lived  haunt  my 
sleep  sometimes — but  it  is  the  one,  only  way 
that  I  can  love  him,  and  my  love  is  the  one, 
only  thing  in  all  the  world  that  he  wants. 
Oh!"  she  cried,  "there  isn't  anything  that 
you  can  hint  or  suggest  to  me  that  I  haven't 
thought  of.  But  if  he  is  willing  —  if  he 
chooses  for  himself — and  I  have  nothing  else 
to  give,  what  then  ?  What  then  ?  *  All  that 
a  man  hath  will  he  give  for  his  skin/  says 
Job.  Shall  not  a  man  give  something  for 
his  soul  ?  Will  not  a  love  such  as  ours  pay 
for  the  loss  of  lesser  loves,  of  lesser  joys  r 
All  the  world  shall  be  our  children — all  who 
need  us,  all  who  crave  comforting  that  cross 
our  path." 

"It  is  as  wildly,  incoherently  beautiful  as 
the  dream  of  the  millennium — it  is  the  'lion 
lying  down  with  the  lamb,"  said  Anice, 
"  163 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

smiling  faintly,  "but  I  feel  the  hostile  powers 
pressing  in  on  you — the  great,  dark,  resist- 
less powers  of  the  earth,  of  the  beginning 
of  things.  'The  Mighty  Mother'  can  be 
avengeful  if  not  revengeful,  I  think.  You 
are  defying  her  as  no  one  ever  dared  to  defy 
her.  One  may  'flee  into  the  desert  and  save 
his  soul'  alone  I  think,  but  hardly  two — 
hardly  two,  my  darling.  Forgive  me  if  I 
vex  you  with  my  humdrumness." 

"  It  is  all  true  what  you  say,  every  word  of 
it,"  answered  Meraud.  "  But,  then,  it  is  the 
exceptions,  you  know,  that  prove  rules.  And 
there  have  been  exceptions  before  —  long 
ago,  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Wonderful  gold 
flowers  grew  out  of  that  darkness,  Anice; 
golden  roses,  like  this  of  mine—  And  she 
began  to  dream  behind  the  dim  veil  of  her 
hair,  leaning  chin  on  hand,  and  gazing  out 
into  the  fair  night  that  had  been  to  her  as  a 
great  chalice  of  rapture. 

"Meraud,"  said  Anice,  suddenly,  "don't 
think  me  cruel — it  is  only  you  that  I  am 
thinking  of — but,  darling,  what  would  you 
do  if  this  failed  you  ?" 

"Could  God  fail  me?"  said  Meraud,  smil- 
164 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

ing.  "He  gave  me  this,  * He-whose-glory- 
is-loving,'  as  Narada  calls  him.  This  is  not 
of  the  things  that  fail,  Anice." 

"  But,  Meraud — but,  darling — you  yourself 
have  taught  me  that  nothing  short  of  the 
Eternal  is  sure." 

"  Is  not  love  the  Eternal  ?"  said  Meraud, 
and  she  was  still  smiling  as  at  some  lovely 
"  secret  of  God,"  as  she  had  once  called  it. 

"Your  love  is,  I  think — I  truly  think," 
Anice  answered,  stilled  by  something  in  the 
rapt  face  before  her;  "but  he — he  is  hardly 
— forgive  me,  dearest — he  is  hardly  to  your 
measure,  Meraud." 

"You  do  not  know  him  as  I  know  him," 
came  the  old,  old  saying,  ever  to  be  repeated, 
again  and  again,  until  women  cease  to  be. 

But  Anice,  watching  her,  remembered  all 
that  she  had  been  used  to  tell  her  of  'that 
ancient,  narrow  path,  stretching  far  away,' 
and  of  the  fair  illusions  that  beset  the  steps 
of  those  who  seek  to  climb  it.  Meraud 
had  loved  before,  but  it  was  the  unformed, 
ignorant  love  of  a  girl.  She  loved  now, 
with  the  plenitude  of  all  her  powers,  with 
the  full  knowledge  of  life,  with  the  concen- 
165 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

tration  of  every  mystic  and  spiritual  force, 
upon  a  passion  that  seemed,  to  Anice,  as 
beautiful  and  as  fantastic  as  a  Sidhe  maiden's 
dream  of  the  forbidden  Christian  heaven. 
And  what  was  to  be  the  result,  what  the 
end,  glimpsed  as  through  long,  twilit  vistas 
wrought  of  the  stuff  that  dreams  are  made 
of — as  shadowy,  as  unstable?  What  pos- 
sible issue  could  there  be  from  a  situation  so 
altogether  at  variance  with  the  sane  solidity 
of  life  as  it  rose  about  them,  based  on  fact 
as  on  some  paleolithic  rib  of  the  gaunt 
Universe  ?  She  seemed  to  see  a  white  moth, 
type  eternal  of  the  dauntless  valor  of  winged 
souls,  trying  to  beat  back  with  its  fragile 
wings  a  prairie  fire;  a  lark  trying  to  sing  its 
way  unscorched  into  the  sun;  a  child  with 
its  naked  hand  seeking  to  stay  the  great 
glaive  of  Karma. 

"Oh,"  she  thought,  "if  only  Robert  Dun- 
das  were  here!  If  only  she  would  let  me  talk 
with  him,  or  talk  with  him  herself.  I  am 
afraid  for  her — I  am  afraid." 

In  the  mean  time  Traffbrd  kept  vigil  with 
his  thoughts  of  Meraud  as  a  knight  beside  his 
166 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

armor  on  the  eve  of  his  investiture.  The 
wild  purity  of  her  dream  of  love  moved  him 
as  nothing  real  or  imagined  had  ever  moved 
him,  called  out  in  him  every  latent  strain  of  a 
romance  as  poignant  as  it  was  unpractical. 
All  that  was  unmodern  in  him — and  it  was 
the  larger  part — rose  up  and  hailed  her  with 
a  great  voice  as  the  Sovereign  Dream  of  all 
his  long  years  of  dreaming.  She  was  come 
at  last — Rosa  Mundi,  the  matchless,  the  long- 
divined.  And  as,  in  the  beginning,  he  had 
forbidden  himself  to  analyze,  to  dissect,  so 
now  he  stayed  himself  from  all  too  curious 
questionings  about  the  future,  living  to  the 
full  this  ineffable,  present  hour  with  a 
quintessential  power  of  feeling  that  seemed 
to  partake  of  immortality. 

He  had  waited,  and  she  had  come  at  last 
— the  One,  the  Only,  the  predestined  from 
before  the  foundations  of  the  world;  and  he 
began  to  share  her  sweet  belief  that  in  many 
and  many  another  life  they  had  found  and 
loved  each  other,  and  would  so  find  each  other 
and  love,  again  and  yet  again,  until  time 
should  be  no  more.  "La  dove  io  famal 
pnma — La  dove  io  t'amai  prima — "  Always 
167 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

he  fell  asleep  and  awakened  to  the  white 
music  of  those  words  spoken  in  her  low, 
thrilling  voice,  as  on  that  night  when  she 
had  sent  for  him  and  come  to  meet  him  under 
the  clear  shining  of  the  imperturbable  stars. 


XII 

ONE  morning,  as  they  sat  together  in  the 
cool  hall,  when  the  post  had  come,  Me- 
raud  noticed  that  Trafford  looked  troubled 
after  reading  a  certain  letter. 

"What  is  it  ?"  she  asked,  putting  her  hand 
on  his.  "  Can  you  tell  me  ?" 

He  lifted  the  hand  to  his  cheek  and  held 
it  there,  his  eyes  still  moodily  fastened  upon 
the  letter. 

"  Don't  tell  me  if  you  don't  want  to,"  she 
said,  softly,  "but  if  it  will  help  you — 

"I  must  tell  you,"  he  said — "it's  that  that's 
troubling  me.  I've  been  putting  it  off  and 
putting  it  off,  and  now  it's  come  to  the  place 
that  I  must  tell  you." 

"What  is  it,  then  ?  What  is  it  ?  Tell  me 
quickly,"  and  she  grew  a  little  pale. 

"Why,  you  know,  dearest,"  he  said, 
"what  a  gypsy  I've  been  all  my  life.  And  I 
promised  last  winter  to  go  to  India  this  Oc- 
169 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

tober  with  a  friend  of  mine.  It  wasn't  just 
an  ordinary  journey,  you  see.  We  planned 
to  go  up  from  Ceylon,  and  then  in  April  take 
that  trip  over  the  Himalayas  that  the  man 
took  in  that  book  The  Abode  of  Snow — you've 
read  it  ?" 

"Yes,"  she  said.     "Go  on." 

"Well,  you  see  it's  a  bit  of  an  undertaking, 
and  Dempster  has  been  making  all  the  ar- 
rangements, getting  letters,  looking  after  our 
outfit — all  the  bothering  part  of  it,  and — and 
—well,  he  counts  on  me,  and  I  promised." 

"I  see;  and  that  means  you  will  have  to  go 
very  soon  now  ?" 

"  I  ought  to  be  in  New  York  by  the  first 
of  August  at  least,"  he  answered,  looking 
wholly  miserable.  "  I've  got  a  lot  of  things 
to  look  after  there,  and  then  I'm  to  meet  him 
in  London.  We  were  going  to  start  from 
Ceylon,  and  spend  some  months  on  the 
way—  Oh,  dearest,"  he  broke  ofF,  "what 
am  I  to  do  ?  I  can't  leave  you — how  can  I 
leave  you  ?  And  yet,  I  promised." 

"Dear,"  she  said,  smiling  into  his  gloomy 
eyes,  "love  adds  wings;  it  doesn't  take 
them  away.  I  want  you  to  feel  free,  free  to 
170 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

'go  to  and  fro  in  the  earth  and  walk  up  and 
down  in  it'  as  much  as  you  like.  Besides," 
and  she  smiled  again,  "I  shall  have  your 
letters,  sha'n't  I  ?" 

"Every  day — every  day,"  he  said,  eagerly. 
"  It  will  be  my  life — that,  and  getting  yours— 
oh,  getting  yours  more  than  everything.  But 
to  leave  you— to  leave  you." 

"We  sha'n't  really  leave  each  other.  We 
can  never  be  really  apart — now." 

"  Ah,  you're  so  much  more  of  a  spirit  than 
I  am.  I'm  such  an  earth-bound  thing  next 
to  you,  Meraud.  I  shall  starve  for  your  eyes 
and  your  voice  and — and  your  lips,  sweetest 
— sweetest."  Their  eyes  darkened  on  each 
other,  and  his  trouble  passed  into  her  face. 

"It  —  it  is  hard,"  she  said,  her  voice 
trembling. 

"So  hard  that  I  don't  see  how  I  can  do  it. 
By  Heaven!  I  cant  do  it!"  he  cried,  and  got 
to  his  feet. 

"But  you  promised — you  promised,"  she 
said,  rising,  too,  and  standing  close  to  him. 
"You  promised,  Steven." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  he  said,  dejectedly-  "I 
know." 

171 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

"And  we  will  make  all  the  days  and  nights 
between  now  and  then  so  beautiful,  so  per- 
fectly beautiful.  We  can  live  on  that  for  just 
a  few  months,  dear.  Why,  one  single  day 
of  ours  would  be  a  memory  for  most  people 
to  live  upon  all  their  lives,  I  think.  Don't 
be  so  unhappy — try,  dear." 

He  turned  and  took  her  in  his  arms,  and 
bent  down  his  cheek  upon  her  soft  hair. 
And  so  they  stood,  without  moving  or  speak- 
ing, for  a  long  time.  Then  she  drew  herself 
away,  and  put  one  hand  on  his  breast,  look- 
ing up  at  him. 

"Let  us  begin  now,"  she  said.  "Let  us  be- 
gin with  this  very  day  that  is  ours  now.  We 
will  go  out  into  the  garden  and  pretend  that 
it  is  Eden  garden  before  the  snake  entered." 

"Oh,  the  snake  has  entered!"  he  cried, 
bitterly.  "  It  has  come  in  with  this  damnable 
letter — forgive  me,  dearest." 

"I — I  quite  agree  with  you,"  she  said, 
laughing  at  him.  "I  think  it's  a  —  a  — 
'damnable  letter,'  too — but  it  sha'n't  spoil 
any  of  the  time  that  is  left  to  us.  Come — 
come  with  me.  Leave  it  here,  and  come  out 
with  me." 

172 


It  was  the  eve  of  Trafford's  departure, 
and  he  and  Meraud  stood  on  the  front  porch 
as  on  the  first  day  of  his  coming,  but  hand- 
in-hand  this  time.  Before  them  lay  the  fair 
night,  hushed  and  sweet  under  its  veil  of 
stars. 

"This  shall  be  our  white  night — whiteness 
of  flame  and  pearl  and  stars,"  she  said,  under 
her  breath.  And  their  hands  unclasped,  and 
his  arm  went  round  her,  and  they  passed 
together  into  the  soft  mystery  before  them. 

Like  two  children  that  their  simple  and 
impassioned  love  made  of  them,  they  went 
to  say  farewell  to  every  spot  where  they  had 
been  happy. 

"First,  our  woods,"  she  said.  "You  called 
me  a  dryad  once — do  you  remember  ?  Let 
us  go  and  tell  my  sisters  good-bye.  Their 
houses  will  be  roofed  with  gold  and  rubies 
and  then  stripped  bare  before  I  see  you 
again — my  dear — my  dear — " 

They  paused  on  their  way  to  listen  to  the 
old  Scotch  airs  that  Anice  was  playing. 
She  slipped  from  the  wild  mourning  of 
"Lochaber  No  More"  into  that  saddest  of 
all  sad  folk-songs,  "Loch  Lomond." 
173 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"  Oh,  why  does  she  play  that  ? — to-night 
of  all  nights!"  cried  Trafford,  shivering. 
"That  song  always  undoes  me.  Let  us  go, 
dearest,  let  us  go!" 

"For  me,"  she  said,  pressing  her  cheek  an 
instant  against  his  arm  in  consolation,  "it 
only  means  that  'me  and  my  true  love*  will 
never  meet  because  we  can  never  be  parted." 

"You  are  not  of  this  earth,  loveliest,"  he 
answered,  "and  I  am." 

"We  are  both  of  the  earth,"  she  said, 
wistfully,  "but  we're  kneaded  of  the  star- 
dust,  too." 

And  now  they  reached  the  woods,  and 
entered  through  the  dew-bright  boughs  that 
he  held  aside  for  her.  The  high,  whispering 
vaults  overarched  them,  and  now  and  then, 
upon  some  branch,  swayed  by  the  dim  air, 
a  star  trembled  for  an  instant  like  a  delicate 
flower  of  fire. 

"Our  star,"  she  said,  "coming  to  find  us 
in  the  shadows." 

Then  back  again,  and  through  the  great 
box-hedge  to  the  garden,  where  they  stood 
among  the  roses  already  so  nearly  gone,  and 
she  gathered  a  white,  half-folded  bud  and 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

fastened  it  in  her  breast  "to  get  warm  with 
my  heart  before  it  goes  to  you,"  she  said,  and 
afterwards  unwound  the  soft  coils  of  her 
hair  and  shook  them  loose,  that  she  might 
find  a  tress  for  him,  the  whole  length  of  its 
pale  shining.  And  she  laughed,  and  took 
away  his  knife,  and  severed  the  strands  her- 
self, because  he  said  that  it  gave  him  physical 
pain  to  cut  through  what  was  so  much  a 
part  of  her.  Then  down  to  the  brook  flow- 
ing at  the  garden's  edge,  in  and  out  among 
mint  and  water -cress,  and  tall  Cardinal 
spikes,  black  in  the  wan  light. 

"  It  is  like  our  love,"  she  said.  "  See  where 
the  stones  divide  it  and  how  it  rushes  together 
again.  That  is  like  the  times  when  we  for- 
got a  little  while — the  many,  many  times;  but 
always  in  the  end  we  remembered — we  came 
together  again,  and  yet  again — 

"And  will  forever,"  he  said. 

"And  will  forever." 

She  made  him  cross  over,  and  with  clasped 
hands  they  took  the  old-time  vow  of  lovers 
over  running  water,  and  ever  afterwards  that 
sound  of  living  water  meant  only  her  to  him, 
as  did  the  swaying  of  forests  on  starry  nights 
175 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

and  the  perfume  of  crushed  mint  and  of 
white  roses  and  of  new-cut  grass  and  flowers. 

Beside  the  old  moon-dial  they  sat  awhile, 
and  she  brushed  away  the  rose-petals  that 
covered  the  stone  letters  and  traced  them 
slowly  with  her  ringer,  reading  them  aloud: 
"Ad  astra  per  as  per  a — to  the  stars  through 
aspiring.  Oh,  we  have  reached  them,  dear, 
we  have  reached  them." 

"The  stars  are  you  to  me,"  he  said.  "All 
is  just  you,  and  you,  and  you." 

"It  is  because  of  the  star  in  us  that  we  can 
love  as  we  love,"  she  answered.  "We  are 
made  of  one  essence,  dearest — breathed  upon 
by  one  breath  of  life.  Did  not  my  heart  burn 
within  me  whe,n  you  first  spoke  to  me — when 
I  first  saw  you  behind  your  eyes  ?  Oh,"  she 
cried,  lifting  up  her  arms  to  the  vast  and 
golden  silence  of  the  obedient  heavens, 
"whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see — I  gave  up 
my  life  and  I  have  found  it.  All  the  worlds 
shall  bring  cedar  to  build  my  house!  All 
the  worlds  shall  bring  cedar  to  build  my 
house!" 

And  he,  kneeling  beside  her,  looked  up  into 
her  face,  and  felt,  as  all  who  have  greatly 
176 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

loved,  whether  true  men  or  libertines,  have 
felt  at  some  moment  before  the  creature  of 
their  worship,  that  the  fulfilment  of  earthly 
passion  would  be  a  sordid  thing,  a  desecra- 
tion of  all  that  is  most  lovable  in  love. 

All  that  long  and  lovely  night  they  wan- 
dered hand-in-hand  together,  or  sat  folded 
in  each  other's  arms,  sorrowfully  happy 
where  they  had  been  happy  with  such  excess 
of  unthinking  joy;  and  when  morning  came, 
white  and  chill  as  from  long  journeyings 
across  those  wastes  of  snow  that  were  to  take 
him  from  her,  she  turned  against  his  breast, 
and  lifted  up  her  mouth  to  his,  and  they  gave 
each  other  the  long,  long  kiss  of  parting, 
wherein  they  seemed  to  drink  of  an  immor- 
tality made  poignant  with  the  sharp  salt  of 
human  tears. 

The  first,  almost  intolerable  pang  of  miss- 
ing him  in  the  thousand  little  sweet  trivialities 
of  every  day — that  wild  hunger  of  the  heart, 
which  made  Lady  Russell  cry  out,  after  her 
husband's  death,  "I  want  him  to  walk  with, 
and  talk  with,  and  eat  with;"  that  needing 
him,  as  a  man  under  water  needs  air,  and, 
177 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

as  the  old  Sage  said,  that  one  must  need 
God  in  order  to  find  Him;  that  hateful 
vacuity  as  of  some  emptiness  within  her  own 
soul — passed  with  the  coming  of  his  first 
letter,  and  she  entered  into  that  new  life, 
lived  with  him  in  the  hidden  places  of  her 
heart,  and  which  was  to  suffice  her  for  so 
many  months.  All  her  life  she  remembered 
that  first  letter,  and  how  she  went  to  meet 
the  groom  before  he  reached  the  lawn  gate, 
so  that  no  one,  not  even  Anice,  might  see  her 
receive  her  treasure.  She  remembered  how 
the  dead  paper  had  seemed  to  thrill  in  her 
hand,  and  give  out  a  shock  as  of  some  sub- 
tle life  imparted  from  that  other  hand  that 
had  written  on  it,  and  of  how  all  her  blood 
ran  up  to  meet  that  contact,  and  her  heart 
waned  and  waxed  within  her  like  a  sweet 
flame.  "  Love,  ail  joyful  states  of  mind,  are 
self-expressive,"  says  a  great  writer;  "they 
loosen  the  tongue,  they  fill  the  thoughts  with 
sensuous  images,  they  harmonize  one  with 
the  world  of  sight,"  and  so  these  two  poured 
out  upon  sheets  of  close -folded  paper  of 
the  thinnest  texture — that  the  bulk  of  their 
letters  might  not  cause  needless  gaping — all 
178 


THE   GOLDEN    ROSE 

the  passionate  and  pent-up  imaginings  that 
pressed  so  sore  upon  them  in  their  separa- 
tion. 

"Oh,  my  dearest,  my  nearest!"  she  wrote 
to  him.  "Oh,  all  my  dreams  come  true!" 
And  then  she  took  her  heart  and  soul  and 
unfolded  them  before  him,  in  that  delicate, 
small,  slightly  old-fashioned  handwriting 
that  seemed  the  very  quintessence  of  certain 
traits  about  her  that  he  most  adored.  Of 
some  finely  tempered  beings,  Love  makes 
poets  once  in  a  long  lifetime  perhaps;  and 
these  letters,  written  in  the  light  shed  from 
his  wings,  never  to  be  seen  by  other  eyes, 
poured  out  only  on  condition  that  no  other 
eyes  shall  ever  see  them — these  fragile  and 
evanescent  poems,  rightly  lost  to  a  curious 
and  print  -  mad  world,  are  the  true  love- 
letters  of  poets,  saved  by  the  tender  destiny 
of  unknown  lovers  from  the  proof-marks  of 
printers  and  the  price-stamp  of  publishers — 
sweet,  unblurred  pages  from  the  book  of  life, 
destined  to  end  in  fire  as  they  began,  or,  on 
the  breast  of  some  dead  man  or  woman,  to 
return  with  them  to  dust. 

But  Anice  watched  with  apprehension  that 
13  179 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

mystic  look  growing  in  the  large  eyes,  and 
the  quiet  lips  parting  in  smiles  that  seemed 
an  answer  to  some  whisper  from  the  air  about 
her,  and  it  was  with  a  relief  amounting  to  real 
joy  that  she  greeted  Robert  Dundas  when 
he  arrived  finally  for  his  August  holiday. 

"  Do  you  find  her  looking  well  ?"  she  asked 
him,  anxiously.  "Don't  you  think  she  looks 
very  white — very  transparent,  almost  ?" 

"The  flame  in  that  vase  always  shone 
through  a  little,"  he  answered,  smiling. 
"  There  seems  to  me  a  sort  of  supervital  joy 
about  her  rather  than  anything  exhausted. 
She  seems  to  be  drawing  from  the  springs  of 
a  fuller  life  than  most  of  us  know  anything 
about.  There  isn't  any  need  to  ask  if  she 
is  happy."  And  he  caught  back  a  sigh  and 
held  it  as  he  turned  to  look  after  Meraud 
walking  away  from  them  down  the  long 
lawn,  her  little  writing-case  of  white  leather 
under  one  arm. 

"Yes;  oh  yes,"  said  Anice.  "She  is  hap- 
py— can  one  be  too  happy,  do  you  think  ? 
Too  happy  for  this  every-day  world — for — 
for — what  might  come — " 

"She  is  going  to  write  to  him,  I  suppose," 
1 80 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

Dundas  said,  absently,  not  hearing  her  ques- 
tion. "What  letters  those  must  be!  What 
letters — what  letters — "  And  this  time  the 
sigh  escaped  him. 

"Oh,  Dr.  Dundas,"  Anice  cried,  laying 
her  hand  upon  his  arm  as  they  stood  to- 
gether, "once  you  said — do  you  remember? 
— that  you  feared  that  he  wasn't — that  there 
wasn't  *  enough  to  him.'  Those  were  the 
words  you  said.  Oh,  do  you  think  that  he 
might  ever — might  come  to — might — " 

Dundas  put  a  kind  hand  over  hers. 

"Don't  worry,"  he  said,  smiling  again, 
"that  will  all  right  itself.  Life  will  deal 
nurse-wisely  with  those  two,  who  think  to  put 
her  in  leading-strings." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  asked.  "I 
don't  quite  understand." 

"Why,  in  plain,  every-day  language,"  re- 
turned he,  "  I  mean  that  in  the  end  they  will 
'marry  and  live  happily  ever  after." 

"Oh,  you  don't  know  her!  And  I  thought 
you  really  knew  her!"  she  cried,  with  a  sort 
of  anguish. 

"I  know  Nature,  my  dear,  and  the  great 
law.     'Male  and  female  created   He  them, 
181 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

none  shall  lack  her  mate.'  She  has  found 
her  mate.  Do  you  think  that  she  is  made 
of  such  hard  and  brittle  stuff  that  she  will 
either  break  him  for  a  wild,  unearthly,  im- 
possible ideal,  or  be  broken  herself  because 
he  cannot  fulfil  its  conditions  ?" 

"You  don't  know  her — you  don't  know 
her,"  repeated  Anice.  "She  would  let  him 
go  rather  than  marry  him — than  marry  any- 
body. She  would  bleed  to  death  in  her  own 
heart,  but  she  would  let  him  go.  That— 
that  other  doesn't  seem  love  to  her.  She 
called  it  'hungriness'  to  me  once.  'What 
men  call  love  is  just  hungriness,'  she  said. 
'My  kind  of  love  is  a  thirst.'" 

"Ah,  poor,  dreaming  Psyche,  it  is  Eros 
this  time  who  will  bring  the  lamp,"  said 
Dundas,  and  a  profound  melancholy  dark- 
ened his  light-blue  eyes  for  a  moment. 

"Oh,  is  it  quite  impossible?  Is  it  quite, 
quite  impossible  ?"  she  pleaded,  as  though 
he  held  the  wand  of  destiny  in  his  hand. 
"Meraud  says  that  there  have  been  loves 
like  this;  that  in  the  Middle  Ages  people 
loved  each  other  in  this  way — some  few 
great  lovers." 

182 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Ah,"  he  said,  narrowing  on  her  his  keen 
eyes,  all  alert  and  bright  again — "  ah,  I' amour 
platomque  du  Moyen  Age.  But  there  is  a 
great  question  about  that,  you  know.  Much  of 
it  is  supposed  to  have  been  a  mystic  symbol- 
ism  by  some  savans.  There  are  those  who 
read  that  meaning  into  Dante's  Vita  Nuova 
— into  the  writings  of  all  the  great  Trouveres 
and  Troubadours.  Ah,  dear,  beautiful  soul, 
if  her  'golden  rose*  is  the  golden  rose  of 
la  chevalerie  amoureuse,  I'm  afraid  that  it 
will  wither  in  her  hand  like  any  other — " 

And  he  stood  sombre  and  thoughtful  again, 
recalling  Aroux's  belief  that  those  platonic 
generations  of  respectful  lovers  and  immac- 
ulate ladies  were  only  a  dream,  a  fiction, 
imagined  by  the  poets  of  a  Christian  but 
anti-Catholic  communion  in  order  to  spread 
their  propaganda. 

"However,"  he  said,  turning  abruptly  to 
Anice  again,  "since  it  exists  in  her  own  soul, 
it  is  no  fiction  for  her,  at  all  events;  and  for 
the  present,  at  least,  she  seems  to  have  drawn 
him  up  to  her  own  heights." 

"She  almost  worships  him.  There  must 
be  something  very  fine  and  unusual  in  him 
183 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

for  her  to  feel  to  him  like  that.     Don't  you 
think  so  ?     Ah,  do  say  you  think  so  ?" 

"Do  you  remember  what  I  said  once  to 
you  about  'glamour'  ?"  asked  Dundas.  "An 
archangel  once  in  love  would  be  glamoured 
— even  his  heavenly  aureole  would  seem  dim 
in  that  shining." 

"Do  you  mean  that  he  will — will  fail  her? 
No,  no!  don't  say  it.  Don't  even  think  it!" 
she  cried,  shuddering.  "Don't  let  us  put  it 
into  words.  Words  are  such  terrible,  alive 
things.  They  seem  to  begin  fulfilling  them- 
selves the  moment  one  has  uttered  them." 

"You  are  fretting  yourself  into  a  fever 
over  nothing,  I  tell  you,"  he  said,  a  little 
roughly,  shaken  in  spite  of  himself  by  her 
distress.  "It  will  end  as  all  such  things 
always  end — in  marriage — marriage — mar- 
riage." 

"You  don't  know  her,"  she  said  again, 
with  a  sort  of  hopeless  obstinacy.  "  Forgive 
me,  but  in  this  you  don't — you  don't— 

"Have  it  your  own  way,  then,"  he  said, 
fiercely;  "picture  her  deserted,  heart-broken, 
dead — worse  than  dead.  I  can  do  nothing 
for  either  of  you." 

184 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Oh,  you  are  cruel,"  she  said;  "you  are 
very,  very  cruel!" 

"Great  God!"  he  broke  out,  "can't  you 
see  that  I  suffer  too  ?  Do  you  imagine  for  a 
moment  that  I  have  not  had  all  these  viperish, 
fancies  knotting  and  unknotting  before  me 
ever  since  I  heard  this  ?" 

She  came  and  stood  beside  him  again,  a 
wistful  little  figure,  with  hands  clasped. 

"Forgive  me,"  she  said,  "I  was  selfish. 
My  own  pain  made  me  selfish.  I  might 
have  known — 

"We'll  just  forgive  each  other  everything 
beforehand,  and  stick  closer  than  brothers," 
he  said,  melting  under  her  appeal  into  one  of 
the  big,  tender  moods  that  so  endeared  him 
to  those  who  knew  him  well.  "Poor  child! 
You  are  shaking  all  over.  I  think  it's  you 
who  need  doctoring,  not  Meraud.  At  all 
events,"  and  he  smiled  a  little  wryly,  "the 
divine  ^Esculapius  is  doctoring  her  with  love 
at  present,  and  it  seems  to  agree  with  her 
better  than  any  of  my  mortal  physic;  for, 
really,  she  is  far  better  than  for  months  past. 
Such  an  extravagant,  exalted  mood  as  she 
is  passing  through — " 

185 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Oh — 'passing  through'!"  Anice  could 
not  help  exclaiming. 

"There  —  there  —  we  won't  quarrel  any 
more,"  he  said,  so  exactly  in  the  tone  of  one 
soothing  a  fractious  infant  that  Anice  laughed 
a  little. 

Then  she  stopped  to  say,  with  a  pleading 
seriousness :  "  It  is  really  her  life.  If  it  were 
taken  from  her — 

"It  wouldn't  kill  her,  I  tell  you,"  he  said, 
sharply;  "and,  what's  more,  it  wouldn't  kill 
anything  in  that  fine  soul  of  hers.  Do  you 
remember  my  making  you  look  out  the  word 
'  reaction  '  ?  Well,  now,  if  you  please,  we  will 
just  look  out  the  meaning  of  the  word  'elas- 
tic,' and  you'll  be  kind  enough  to  remember 
that  one  of  the  chief  characteristics  of  that 
soul  is  elasticity." 

Anice  obeyed  him  as  docilely  as  once  be- 
fore, and  as  on  that  occasion  they  read  the 
meaning  of  the  word  together.  "Elastic — 
having  the  power  of  returning  to  the  form 
from  which  it  is  bent,  extended,  depressed, 
or  distorted;  readily  recovering  one's  self 
after  a  shock."1 

"There!"  he  exclaimed,  as  he  snapped  to 
186 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

the  book.  "Please  be  sure  to  remember, 
whenever  you  are  inclined  to  be  'depressed 
or  distorted/  that  that  gift  of  elasticity  was 
the  crowning  gift  bestowed  by  the  chief  fairy 
at  Meraud's  first  birthday  party." 

Anice  laughed  again,  and  gave  his  great 
hand  an  affectionate  squeeze  with  both  her 
small  ones. 

"I  will  try  my  best  to,"  she  said.  "I  will 
indeed." 


XIII 

ON  the  twentieth  of  October,  Meraud  re- 
ceived the  last  letter  that  she  would 
have  from  Traffbrd  for  some  months.  He 
had  explained  this  to  her  before  he  left,  and 
had  given  her  a  safe  and  permanent  address 
to  which  she  could  send  her  letters.  In  the 
places  where  he  would  be  travelling,  from 
about  the  latter  part  of  September,  there  were 
no  sure  posts,  and  therefore  this  gap  in  their 
correspondence  was  an  inevitable  if  heart- 
rending necessity  for  these  two  unmodern 
lovers,  to  whom  this  nourishment  of  ink  and 
paper  was  as  the  bread  of  life. 

At  first  this  ceasing,  as  of  some  spiritual 
manna  by  which  her  soul  sustained  itself, 
cast  Meraud  back  into  the  state  wherein  she 
had  waited  the  coming  of  his  first  letters, 
but  little  by  little  the  actual  world  about  her 
began  to  thrust  in  its  living  green  among  the 
shadowy  foliage  of  her  dream-garden,  and 
188 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

real  voices  to  strike  across  the  low  harmony 
of  imagined  words. 

She  woke,  as  it  were,  with  a  start  of  the 
spirit,  to  realize  that  she  had  been  existing 
in  a  centre  of  exquisite  egoism — that  thrill- 
ing and  prismatic  selfishness  of  the  love  of 
one  alone  which  makes  all  other  men  and 
women  seem  as  trees  walking. 

Very  far  had  this  tidal  movement  of  her 
nature  swept  her  back  from  the  great,  the 
supreme,  the  all-embracing  love  of  which 
she  had  spoken  so  exultingly  to  Anice  on 
that  June  morning  under  the  box-hedge — 
"Danae,  the  golden  key  of  charity  and  love 
immortal."  Had  she  let  it  slip  from  her 
fingers  ?  No,  not  that;  but  she  held  it 
loosely,  she  had  opened  no  locks  with  it. 
It  had  been  to  her  as  some  lovely  toy  of  "the 
sky  children,"  held  awhile,  loved,  and  then 
forgotten.  And  she  saw,  as  in  a  magic  mir- 
ror, herself  as  she  had  been  to  Anice  and  to 
Dundas,  through  all  those  weeks,  when  her 
lovely  secret,  brooded  over  through  days  and 
nights  of  an  aloofness  that  was  for  her  so 
divinely  full,  had  claimed  from  her  all  that 
was  real,  all  that  was  love-worthy  in  her 
189 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

being,  and  left  for  them  only  the  empty  shell 
of  her  mechanically  speaking,  automatic  self 
of  casual  moments.  They  had  been  "but 
the  ministers  of  love"  in  a  very  real  sense, 
feeding  his  flame  with  patient  discussion  of 
Traffbrd's  qualities,  weaving  his  name  into 
their  talk  with  a  forbearing  and  selfless 
acquiescence  in  her  divined  longing  to  hear 
him  spoken  of,  if  only  in  the  most  fleeting 
fashion,  that  made  her  pale  now  with  what 
Trafford  himself  would  have  called  a  "white 
blush." 

"Oh,  I  have  failed — I  have  failed  miser- 
ably!" she  thought,  with  acute  humiliation. 
"This  great  love,  which  should  have  opened 
all  the  sources  of  everything  that  was  love- 
liest and  highest  in  me,  has  only  set  seals 
upon  them — only  left  them  free  to  water  the 
garden  of  my  own  heart."  And  she  threw 
herself,  with  a  passion  of  that  reaction  which 
had  ruled  her  life,  although  she  did  not  know 
it,  into  a  daily  outpouring  of  the  sweet,  small 
services  of  love  for  Anice,  and  long  letters 
to  Dundas,  such  as  he  had  never  yet  re- 
ceived from  her,  and  which  made  him 
wonder  while  rejoicing  in  them. 
190 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

At  last,  after  what  seemed  an  interval  in 
one  of  those  pale,  monotonous  dreams 
wherein  the  vague  ennui  is  almost  more  taste- 
less than  that  of  actual  life,  Meraud  received 
the  long  hoped-for  letter  that  was  to  come 
in  January,  and  that  meant  his  presence  in 
a  world  where  she  could  be  in  touch  with 
him  once  more.  The  post  arrived  late  that 
day,  and  she  made  for  herself  a  sweet  delay 
of  her  happiness,  the  letter  lying  warm  against 
her  heart  through  dinner  and  the  hours  fol- 
lowing, until  she  could  lock  the  doors  of  her 
bedroom  and  be  alone  with  hirn  —  in  that 
vivid  presence  always  evoked  by  his  written 
words. 

The  great  wood  fire  was  burning  low 
when  she  went  there  finally,  and  she  laid 
some  pieces  of  red  cedar  upon  it,  leaving 
the  lamps  unlighted,  and  kneeling  on  the 
hearth-rug,  that  she  might  read  by  the  soft 
and  scented  blaze.  Then  she  drew  out  the 
envelope,  warm  with  her  breast,  and  kissed 
it  and  broke  the  seal.  As  with  a  sort  of  life, 
in  the  tremulous  firelight,  the  first  sentence 
started  into  sight:  "Dear  and  well-beloved 
lady  in  a  far-away  land."  She  could  not 
191 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

read  on;  something  in  that  sentence  arrested 
the  motion  of  her  soul,  pressed  it  back,  as 
it  were,  upon  itself — something  strange  and 
unfamiliar,  a  hint  of  artificiality,  of  words 
thought  out  and  labored,  of  something  so  all 
unlike  what  she  had  known  of  Trafford  that 
it  seemed  as  though  a  stranger  might  have 
written  them,  or  as  though  they  might  have 
been  copied  from  a  book.  A  pang  of  fore- 
boding flashed  through  her — that  closing  of 
the  heart  upon  itself  which  is  like  mental 
suffocation. 

"How  very  silly  I  am — how  very  silly," 
she  said,  within  herself.  "  I'm  over-sensitive 
with  all  these  months  of  silence."  And 
then  she  lifted  the  letter  again  and  read  on. 
The  little  travelling  -  clock  on  her  mantel- 
piece ticked  out  that  hour  as  impartially  as 
it  had  told  the  hours  before — those  sweet 
hours  of  her  self-made  waiting.  The  per- 
fumed blaze  lighted  as  delicately  the  alien 
words  that  followed  as  it  had  lighted  the 
outer  writing  which  had  promised  her  such 
completion  of  joy  after  the  arid  silence.  She 
read  on  and  on,  and  with  every  sentence, 
with  every  turn  of  phrase  and  meaning,  her 
192 


THE    GOLDEN   ROSE 

heart  felt  emptier  and  her  mood  more  chilled. 
He  had  been  ill,  he  wrote — nothing  serious,  a 
bad  fall,  lack  of  proper  treatment.  He  was 
all  right  again  now,  but  they  had  been 
forced  to  turn  back  by  his  mishap,  and 
would  be  in  America  about  the  first  of 
February.  She  must  know  how  much  he 
longed  to  see  her.  She  must  find  words  for 
him.  Somehow  his  illness  had  left  him 
dumb  and  numb.  He  could  not  write  as  he 
would — but  when  they  saw  each  other  all 
would  be  well  again. 

"All  will  be  well  again,'"  she  repeated, 
in  her  thought.  "What  is  wrong  to  be  well 
again  ?  But  there  is  something  wrong — 
there  is  something — something."  And  she 
turned  to  the  opening  sentence,  feeling  as 
though  a  breath  from  those  far  snow-fields 
had  blown  over  her.  Again  and  again  she 
read,  and  ever  that  sense  of  constraint,  of 
effort,  as  of  one  fulfilling  a  task  in  writing, 
grew  upon  her.  Was  it  Steven — Steven  who 
had  written  her  those  words?  "Ah,  I  am 
selfish — I  am  bitterly  selfish,"  she  told  her- 
self. "He  has  been  ill,  and  I  am  thinking 
only  of  myself."  But  the  very  tone  of  his 
193 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

voice,  saying  "Dearest  —  dearest,"  thrilled 
back  upon  her,  flowing  like  clear  flame 
among  the  gelid  words  before  her  eyes. 
"If  they  were  only  more  simple,"  her  heart 
urged,  if  there  were  only  not  that  complicated 
manner  as  of  one  seeking  to  express  unfelt 
but  desired  emotion. 

"Oh,  what  has  happened  ?"  She  thought. 
"Has  this  illness,  this  fall,  changed  him,  as 
people  change  in  those  dreadful  stories  of 
double  personality  ?  For  this  is  another  man 
who  is  writing  to  me — this  is  some  one  I  never 
knew — not  one  word  is  like  him — not  one 
expression." 

She  undressed,  finally,  like  one  already 
asleep,  and  then,  standing  in  her  thin  night- 
gown, read  the  letter  once  more.  And  once 
more  that  frost  of  unreality,  of  artificiality 
in  it,  struck  through  her  an  actual  chill. 
She  shivered,  and  laid  the  letter  upon  her 
writing-table,  looking  down  at  it  with  fixed, 
clouded  eyes.  Then  again  she  took  it  in 
her  hand. 

"  I  must  put  it  away,"  she  thought,  tiredly. 
"  Perhaps  to-morrow  morning — "  And  she 
moved  towards  a  little  cabinet  where  she 
194 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

kept  all  his  letters — from  the  first  note  handed 
her  that  morning  after  he  had  told  her  that 
he  loved  her  to  the  last  letter  received  in 
October.  She  unlocked  the  door  now,  and, 
laying  down  the  one  that  she  held,  took  a 
packet  of  the  others  into  her  hands.  They 
were  assorted,  numbered,  marked  with  little 
marks  that  told  her  the  secret  of  some  special 
joy  in  this  or  the  other  of  them.  She  looked 
from  them  to  the  one  that  she  had  just  put 
down,  and  her  heart  recoiled.  Could  she 
put  that,  so  different,  so  unreal  thing,  among 
these  others  that  were  curved  with  her  very 
breast  where  they  had  slept  so  often  ?  No, 
all  her  instinct,  all  the  finer  life  in  her,  drew 
back  from  that,  and  she  replaced  the  letters, 
and  in  another  drawer  locked  away  this  last 
one  by  itself. 

Then,  throwing  about  her  a  thick  cloak, 
she  went  to  her  window  and  opened  it  wide 
upon  the  still,  glittering  night  of  snow  and 
stars.  And  as  she  kneeled  there,  gazing  into 
that  stupendous  calm,  something  as  of  heal- 
ing seemed  to  flow  down  from  it  and  assuage 
the  sharp  burning  in  her  heart. 

"More   familiar   than   the    breast    of  my 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

mother,"  she  whispered-  "more  familiar 
than  the  breast  of  my  mother."  And  some 
words  that  she  had  been  saying  when  he 
spoke  to  her  that  June  night  when  love 
found  her  came  to  her  now  and  drew  her 
with  their  mighty  summons.  "  Make  thou 
thy  home  in  That,  so  shall  thy  past  not  fall 
on  thee."  "Teach  me,"  her  soul  cried, 
"  teach  me — if  it  must  be  with  pain,  if  my 
past  must  fall  on  me — then  teach  me  how  to 
bear  it,  how  to  learn  from  it." 

When  she  went  to  sleep  at  night  she  had 
been  used — in  the  fashion  that  lovers  have 
of  assailing  the  mysterious — to  try  to  reach 
him  in  her  dreams  as  Ibbetson  reached  Mimsy 
in  that  beautiful  love  story,  and  sometimes 
she  had  almost  thought  that  she  succeeded, 
so  stingingly  real  had  been  the  touch  of  life 
on  life  in  those  dim  places.  But  to-night  she 
only  saw  his  face,  looking  at  her  as  from  a 
far  distance,  cool,  mocking,  assured,  quizzical, 
as  though  wondering  in  a  complacency  of 
unstirred  feeling,  at  her  restless  pain. 

And  this  feeling  grew  on  her  in  the  days 
that  followed,  until  there  seemed  to  pass  into 
his  pictured  face,  as  she  gazed  at  it,  a  certain 
196 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

distant  quality,  a  sort  of  underlying  lightness 
that  had  never  been  there  until  now.  She 
looked  at  it,  sometimes,  with  such  asking 
intentness  that  the  features  seemed  to  stir 
under  her  gaze,  the  lips  to  take  on  something 
of  the  smile  that  she  remembered,  so  tender, 
and  so  half  amused  at  the  same  time,  because 
of  some  little,  winning  inconsistency  in  her 
that  he  had  loved  and  teased  her  for.  She 
could  hear  his  voice  —  sentences  from  the 
letters  that  had  been  her  life  come  back  to 
her — then  a  quick  veil  of  tears  would  blur 
all,  and  when  she  looked  again,  there  was 
that  new-born  differentness  confronting  her 
— that  look  as  of  a  stranger  wearing  some 
familiar  and  borrowed  garment,  so  that  for 
the  moment  we  take  him  for  the  friend  who 
lent  it. 

"Oh,  I  am  getting  morbid,'*  she  told  her- 
self. "It  has  been  too  long — too  long!" 
And  she  waited,  in  a  species  of  cold  fever, 
for  the  coming  of  another  letter. 

It  came,  and  as  she  held  it  in  her  hand, 

locked  once  more  in  the  safety  of  her  own 

room,  the  first  coward  feeling  that  she  had 

ever   known   shook   all   her   blood.     "I   am 

197 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

afraid,"  she  thought,  with  startled  self-con- 
tempt—  "I  am  afraid  to  open  it." 

And  then,  with  a  grasp  of  all  her  will,  she 
opened  it.  It  was  a  repetition  of  the  first— 
a  little  more  elaborate,  a  little  more  forced, 
if  possible.  He  would  be  in  New  York  on 
the  third  of  February,  and  would  wait  to  hear 
from  her  when  he  should  come  to  see  her. 
Some  rather  important  affairs  would  detain 
him  for  a  while — for  about  ten  days  or  so, 
but  she  would  understand.  He  could  not 
write  fully.  He  seemed  to  be  possessed  of 
some  devil  of  dumbness,  but  she  would  make 
allowances. 

It  was  then  the  twenty-fifth  of  January. 
Meraud  stood  quite  still  for  a  while  after 
reading  this  letter;  then  she  slowly  opened 
the  door,  and  went  to  find  Anice.  She  sat 
down  in  a  low  chair  near  the  piano  and 
waited  until  her  friend  stopped  playing;  then 
she  said,  quietly: 

"Steven  is  coming  back,  Anice.  He  will 
be  in  New  York  the  third  of  next  month. 
If  you  don't  mind  going  with  me,  dear,  I 
think  I'd  like  to  be  there  to  meet  him." 

"Mind!"  cried  Anice.  "Oh,  my  dar- 
108 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

ling,  how  happy  I  am  for  you — how  very 
happy!" 

"Thank  you,  dearest,"  said  Meraud,  and 
her  friend  thought  that  her  stillness  came 
from  perfect  joy. 

They  arrived  in  New  York  on  the  second, 
but  Trafford's  steamer  was  reported  to  be 
late,  so  that  Meraud  left  a  note  at  his  club 
giving  him  her  address,  and  then  busied 
herself  with  amusing  Anice.  She  herself 
heard  music  and  saw  plays,  gaudy  or  com- 
monplace, as  in  a  nightmare.  She  was  but 
one  throb  of  waiting — waiting — waiting  for 
what  she  would  not  ask  herself.  That  what 
might  come  would  come — that  was  her  one 
desire.  And  so  one  evening  she  found  her- 
self in  a  cab  with  Anice,  driving  down  Broad- 
way to  some  theatre  of  which  she  could  not 
even  recall  the  name. 

"You  have  the  tickets,  Anice  ?"  she  asked, 
nervously. 

Anice  smiled  and  answered:  "Yes,  yes, 
lovelorn  lady,  here  in  my  muff." 

As  they  drove  on  it  seemed  that  her  night- 
mare swelled  and  glared  about  her  with  a  sort 
of  poisonous  radiance  as  of  the  underworld. 
199 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

The  sheets  of  lilac-tinted  light,  that  poured 
from  every  side,  showed  her  faces  avid  for 
pleasure,  tense  with  that  greed  for  the  sen- 
sations that  are  purchasable,  set,  whether 
smiling  or  at  rest,  in  a  predetermined  reso- 
lution of  enjoyment,  that  turned  the  tinsel 
night  into  an  artificial  day  of  labor.  That 
violent  sharpness  of  the  street  noises,  so 
different  from  the  sombre,  guttural  roar  of 
London,  or  the  winged  rush  of  Paris,  ex- 
ploded about  her  in  a  very  delirium  of  dis- 
sonance, and  seemed  to  carry  out,  in  its 
strident  clamor,  the  quality  of  the  worst 
voices  among  her  countrywomen.  She  felt 
that  if  the  Statue  of  Liberty  in  the  harbor 
were  to  call  aloud  in  some  great  cause,  it 
would  be  with  a  fierce,  megaphonic  shout  in 
which  all  these  clangors  would  be  blended. 
And  a  sense  of  the  unreality  of  it  all  grew 
upon  her — a  feeling  that  it  was  but  some 
monstrous,  thrice  -  magnified  street  in  a  Ti- 
tanic stage  town  of  gold-miners,  that  would 
be  quenched  and  rolled  aside  for  the  night, 
at  the  ending  of  the  lurid  play.  She  sat 
silent  and  dismayed,  watching  the  red  glare 
of  the  huge  advertisement  that  glowed  like 
200 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

its  crown  jewel  on  the  forehead  of  this  dis- 
torted, harlot  night  of  Broadway — true  em- 
blem of  its  sovereignty — the  immense  cluster 
of  electric  lights  spelling  the  legend  "Tir- 
rell's  Whiskey,"  set  high  in  air  at  the  end 
of  the  incredible  street.  And  she  thought  of 
the  quiet,  snow -wrapped  fields  of  Kings- 
weather,  and  of  the  leafless  branches  of  the 
trees  before  her  window,  quivering  with  a 
thousand  stars,  as  in  the  soft  June  nights 
they  had  quivered  with  the  delicate  fire-flies. 

At  the  theatre  the  crowd  pressed  and 
surged  against  them.  Waves  of  the  odious 
"Chypre"  scent  and  of  cheap  "violet"  sub- 
merged and  almost  suffocated  them,  mingled 
with  the  smell  of  musky  face-powder  and 
warm  silk  and  fur  and  velvet.  All  was  made 
loathsome  for  Meraud  by  that  deep  fore- 
boding in  her  soul,  and  what  at  another 
time  might  have  aroused  her  sense  of  humor, 
at  the  infinitely  varied  play  of  humanity  in 
its  search  for  pleasure,  now  only  chilled  and 
sickened  her. 

It  was  out  of  this  pied  mass,  out  of  this 
shoving,  giggling,  fretting,  fuming  throng, 
that  the  face  of  TrafFord  suddenly  looked 
201 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

into  her  own.  The  earth  made  a  great  sweep 
with  her  as  on  slant  pinions,  and  left  her 
white  and  still,  fixed  there  before  him,  while 
the  eager  crowd  swayed  her  this  way  and 
that.  Then  he  had  drawn  her  aside,  shoul- 
dering his  way,  until  they  stood  in  a  recess 
of  the  lobby. 

"You!  You  here?"  he  said,  and  she 
could  not  see  his  face,  only  hear  his  voice, 
as  from  behind  a  mask, .  muffled,  very  far 
away.  "But  you  did  not  write — I  did  not 
know,"  he  was  saying.  "Where  are  you 
stopping  ?  I  must  see  you — I  must  see  you 
to-morrow  the  first  thing." 

"Oh,  to-night!  to-night!"  her  heart  cried. 
"Let  it  come — let  it  be  over."  But  she  heard 
her  voice  answering,  steadily:  "Yes,  to-mor- 
row, at  ten,"  and  she  gave  him  the  address 
of  the  old-fashioned  hotel  at  which  they  were 
stopping. 

"You  see,  dearest,"  she  heard  him  saying 
again,  "I  am  with  some  people  here  who 
crossed  over  with  me — very  good  friends  of 
mine.  I've  an  engagement  to  keep  with 
them  to-night.  Oh,  this  is  horrible!  But 
to-morrow,  to-morrow — now  I  must  take  you 
202 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

back  to  Miss  Mayo,  somehow.  Don't  worry 
—I  see  her  —  to-morrow  then,  to-morrow," 
and  he  had  spoken  to  Anice  and  was  gone. 

All  that  night  she  and  Trafford  seemed  to 
be  dancing  some  quaint,  stately  dance  to- 
gether, wherein  they  met,  and  bowed  and 
parted  again,  just  touching  each  other's 
finger-tips,  gracious,  ceremonious,  full  of  an 
elaborate  politeness  for  each  other,  while 
above  them  glowed  the  flashing  splendor  of 
the  red  sign  of  "Tirrell's  Whiskey." 

She  stood  in  all  the  garnished  ugliness  of 
her  private  hotel  "parlor"  waiting  for  him, 
and  when  she  heard  his  step  and  his  hand 
upon  the  lock  all  her  life  drew  backward 
to  its  source,  and  left  her  white  and  blind. 
Then,  with  a  supreme  effort,  as  of  a  man 
swinging  himself  into  safety  from  some 
abyss  over  which  he  had  been  hanging  by 
his  hands,  she  caught  at  her  whirling  con- 
sciousness and  held  and  mastered  it.  He 
entered,  he  came  forward  and  stood  before 
her,  and  she  looked  up  into  his  eyes  and  found 
them  empty  of  himself — the  self  that  she 
had  known  and  loved.  He  had  taken  both 
203 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

her  hands  in  his,  and  now  he  was  saying 
words  that  she  knew  of  old — but  his  voice 
was  an  imitation  of  itself.  The  words  were 
lifeless  things,  unwinged  —  as  empty  of  all 
soul  as  were  the  eyes  into  which  she  gazed 
seeking  that  self  that  eluded  her — that  was 
not  there.  And  a  sort  of  wild  pity  came 
over  her  for  him — not  for  herself  in  that 
moment — only  for  him,  the  pity  that  we  feel 
for  some  one  who  has  loved  fair  colors  and 
all  the  lovely  pageantry  of  form,  and  who  has 
been  suddenly  stricken  with  blindness.  For 
she  knew  in  that  moment,  with  that  certainty 
with  which  the  dead  must  know  death,  that 
the  wonder,  the  splendor  of  a  great  passion, 
had  dimmed  into  the  commonplace  for  him, 
had  flickered  and  died  down  and  left  him 
in  the  grayness  of  every  day.  There  was 
affection  left — yes,  and  a  sort  of  marvelling 
at  her,  as  at  some  strange,  exotic  bird  that 
had  alighted  on  his  window-sill  in  time  of 
snow — but  that  quick  chain  of  feeling  that 
had  woven  them  together,  that  was  snapped, 
and  only  the  ordinary  channels  of  communion 
between  two  human  creatures  were  left  to 
them.  All  this  she  knew,  while  he  was  look- 
204 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

ing  at  her,  speaking  to  her,  holding  her  hands 
in  his,  during  that  first  moment.  And  though 
afterwards  she  tried  to  blind  herself,  so  ex- 
cruciating was  this  cold  glare  of  inner  light 
after  the  soft,  golden  glow  that  had  filled  the 
secret  chambers  of  her  soul  for  so  many 
months  —  though  afterwards  she  listened 
gently  to  his  reasonings  and  explanations, 
yet  always,  underneath,  that  keen  barb  of 
intuition  quivered,  piercing  mind  and  heart, 
and  binding  them  together  in  a  double 
certainty  that  was  like  the  anguish  of  a  soul 
dying  into  another  life  of  alien  consciousness. 
As  for  Traffbrd,  what  had  befallen  him  ? 
He  scarcely  knew  himself.  He  was  like  a 
man  who,  awakening,  touches  his  own  hand 
that  is  "asleep,"  as  children  say,  and  thinks 
it  the  hand  of  some  one  else.  He  sought 
with  every  subtlest  contact  of  reminiscence, 
of  recalled  rapture,  to  draw  from  the  numb 
fibres  of  his  inner  being  that  thrill  as  of 
divinity  which  had  so  exalted  him  during 
the  past  summer,  and,  finding  all  effort  vain, 
stood  face  to  face  with  his  own  inmost  self 
and  felt  that  he  looked  upon  a  stranger. 
When  had  it  come  upon  him,  and  how, 
205 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

and  why  ?  When  had  the  wild  magic  failed 
—the  dream  slipped  from  him  ?  Chilled  by 
that  self-contempt  which  finds  itself  helpless 
before  an  emotion  which  one  knows  should  be 
experienced,  and  which  the  heart  withholds, 
he  turned  desperately  for  other  reasons  than 
those  arising  from  the  limitations  of  his  own 
nature.  This  love  had  required  of  him  more 
than  mortal  man  could  give.  Could  a  nor- 
mal being  walk,  as  it  were,  on  strained  tiptoe 
through  the  hustling  life  of  every  day  and 
maintain  his  equilibrium  of  soul  and  body  ? 
She  had  asked  him  to  fly  with  wings  that 
she  had  fastened  upon  him,  while  she  beat 
upward  into  those  unhuman,  dizzy  heights 
which  drew  her,  on  the  sure  pinions  that 
were  of  the  very  essence  of  her  being.  The 
star  had  cried  out  to  the  fire-fly,  and  the  fire- 
fly sank  and  perished  in  those  cold  waters 
of  reality  that  held  her  image.  Yet  his 
dream  had  been  no  less  than  hers.  Caught 
by  that  great  wind  of  her  ideal,  he  had  been 
borne  as  high  as  she  if  only  for  a  heart-beat; 
but  apart  from  her,  away  from  that  magic 
of  her  personality  which  had  once  given  him 
the  sensation  as  of  a  divine  vertigo — a  falling 
206 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

upward — the  mystery  of  her  nature  had  lost 
its  allurement  as  of  the  land  beyond  the 
lightning,  and  only  a  chill  void  enclosed  him, 
empty  of  the  warm,  human  commonplaces 
that  fill  the  lives  of  other  men.  There  had 
been  times  when  he  dreamed  of  winning  her 
to  marriage,  but  too  intimate  had  been  his 
intuition  of  that  strange  soul,  which  had  so 
glamoured  him  with  its  very  strangeness,  for 
him  to  rest  long  in  such  a  hope.  And  he  was 
left  comfortless,  bereft  of  that  starry  fire 
which  had  lit  his  blood  as  with  the  passion 
of  another  world,  cherishing  in  its  place  a 
chill,  half-awed  worship  as  for  some  being 
who  had  revisited  this  earth  from  higher 
regions  and  knew  not  the  measure  or  the 
might  of  human  loves.  She  no  longer  seemed 
to  him  like  the  angel  of  Hasala,  half  fire,  half 
snow.  In  himself,  he  thought,  had  been  all 
the  fire,  and  in  her  but  star-lighted  snow— 
and  the  very  melting  of  that  snow  had 
quenched  his  fire. 

They   talked   long   into   the   dark,   winter 

day,  and  under  the  window  a  hand  -  organ 

ground  out,  with  stolid  reiterance,  "Tell  Me, 

Pretty  Maiden,"  and  "Rip  Van  Winkle  Was 

207 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

a  Lucky  Man."  She  laughed  once,  she 
could  not  help  it.  The  tears  that  should 
have  helped  her  seemed  frozen  on  her  heart, 
but  her  laughter  was  gentle,  half  at  herself 
for  having  dreamed  that  life  could  give  her 
her  dream — half  at  the  acrid  irony  of  in- 
animate things,  since  that  hand-organ  should 
elect  to  interweave  the  most  bitter  hour  of 
all  her  life  with  the  vulgar  gayety  of  tunes 
never  to  be  heard  again  without  recalling  it. 
She  did  not  let  him  see  how  surely  she  knew 
the  truth — how  wholly — how  completely. 

"Dear  Steven,"  she  said,  and  she  looked 
at  him  as  we  look  at  our  beloved  dead  before 
turning  from  them  for  the  last  time,  although 
he  did  not  divine  the  look — only  thought  how 
beautiful  and  sad  her  eyes  were  and — how  cold 
—"dear  Steven,  I  have  thought  and  thought 
of  all  this — as  many  thoughts  as  you  have  had 
out  there  in  the  far  snows.  And  this  will  be 
best — to  wait  a  year,  at  least,  before  we  see 
each  other  again.  I  have  only  this  love 
that  I  know  how  to  love  with,  to  give  you— 
dearest — but — it — it  is  but  a  bleak  thing  to 
fill  a  whole  life — as  men  look  on  love.  See, 
I  understand — oh,  I  understand!" 
208 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

And  he  had  protested  and  argued  and 
pleaded,  holding  her  hands  in  his,  bending 
close  to  her,  feeling  for  a  moment,  even, 
some  of  the  old  glamour  stealing  over  him, 
with  the  glance  of  her  soft  eyes  and  the 
breath  from  her  parted  lips  that  smiled  upon 
him.  But  in  the  end  she  had  her  way,  and 
went  back  that  night  to  Virginia  alone  with 
Anice. 


XIV 

IT  was  to  a  haunted  house  that  Meraud 
returned;  a  house  haunted  by  that  saddest 
of  all  ghosts — the  phantom  of  one  who  is 
dead  to  us  while  yet  he  lives.  He  walked 
with  her  along  the  halls,  sat  in  the  familiar 
chairs,  smiled  at  her  with  the  smile  that  she 
had  dreamed  of  and  that  she  had  last  seen, 
only  as  the  curve  upon  a  mask,  unquickened 
by  the  love  which  they  had  once  thought 
immortal. 

And  all  about  her  were  the  signs  of  some- 
thing that  had  been  more  than  life  to  her, 
and  that  would  never  be  again:  books  that 
they  had  read  together;  books  that  he  had 
marked  and  given  her;  trifles  that  meant 
some  especial  moment,  with  its  revelations 
as  of  secrets  kept  for  them  since  the  begin- 
ning. And  she  thought  of  how  love  had 
appeared  suddenly  in  the  ordered  closes  of 
her  life,  so  strangely  beautiful,  as  a  ship  in 
210 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

full  sail  will  sometimes  appear  on  unseen 
waters  among  the  great  trees  of  a  Dutch 
garden,  and  felt  a  loneliness  as  of  one  in  a 
void  dream,  where  the  earth  has  shrivelled 
from  beneath  the  feet  and  the  air  is  emptied 
of  its  stars.  There  in  that  wide  space, 
wherein  was  no  other  voice,  she  asked  her 
soul  the  old,  eternal  questions  and  the  soul 
of  her  soul  answered  her.  With  darkness 
upon  darkness  she  was  to  strike  the  new 
light  that  should  guide  her,  and  she  remem- 
bered those  words  terrible  and  piteous  as  life 
itself:  "Before  the  soul  can  stand  in  the 
presence  of  the  Master  its  feet  must  be 
washed  in  the  blood  of  the  heart."  Ah,  she 
had  been  too  sure.  Like  a  child  running 
on  light  feet  after  flowers,  she  had  trod  the 
first  fair  slope  of  that  ancient  narrow  path, 
forgetful  of  the  farther  steep  as  difficult  to 
tread  as  the  edge  of  a  razor.  She  had  turned 
aside,  and  followed  her  dream  into  those  bright 
halls  of  Illusion,  under  whose  every  bloom  lies 
coiled  a  serpent.  "Freed  from  passion,  fear, 
and  anger,"  she  had  dared  to  say,  and  now 
passion  had  swept  her,  trembling,  from  her  cen- 
tre and  a  "great  fear  had  laid  hold  upon  her." 
is  an 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"But  not  anger — not  anger!"  she  cried, 
leaning  down  her  head,  heavy  with  the  tears 
that  would  not  flow,  upon  his  last  letter,  for 
her  destiny  had  found  yet  another  whip  with 
which  to  scourge  her,  and  these  last  words 
from  Trafford  had  set  her  shaking  with  their 
passionate  indignation  against  "love  and 
life  and  all  things."  "Oh,"  she  had  said, 
when  she  had  read  them,  "'love  suffereth 
long  and  is  kind — is  kind.'  Did  he  never 
love  me — to  write  me  such  words  as  these  ?" 
Then  a  new  feeling  moved  her,  and  she  said, 
sorrowfully,  "My  poor  Steven — he  is  angry 
with  himself  and  he  thinks  that  he  is  angry 
with  me."  And  she  took  the  letter  and  laid 
it  gently  on  her  fire.  "Ashes  to  ashes,"  she 
whispered  as  it  burned. 

In  silence  and  in  outer  quietude  she  fought 
out  the  great  fight,  and  the  delicate  contour 
of  her  face  sharpened,  and  there  came  a  still 
acquiescence  into  the  large  eyes,  clear  and 
serene  as  ever,  but  brimmed  now  with  that 
mystic  look  which  Anice,  like  Dundas,  both 
loved  and  dreaded.  She  had  been  always 
pale,  but  now  there  was  in  this  whiteness  a 
strange,  ethereal  quality,  as  of  one  who  has 
212 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

bent  over  the  white  poppies  of  Dis  and 
caught  the  reflection  of  their  mystic  pallor, 
and  of  that  eternal  sadness  of  all  fair  things 
born  to  perish. 

"Come — come,"  wrote  Anice  to  Dundas. 
"Make  any  excuse,  but  come  quickly." 

He  came  on  a  day  of  light-falling  February 
snow,  and  brought  with  him  some  great,  red 
roses,  a  few  of  which  Meraud  carried  away 
with  her  to  her  room.  She  had  always 
found  a  delicate  pleasure  in  the  contrast  of 
ardent  color  with  a  white  day  such  as  this, 
and  now  she  sat,  dreaming  her  sad  dream  of 
the  peace  that  was  to  come  again  when  the 
devastating  inner  storm  had  passed,  and 
watching  the  crimson  roses  against  their 
background  of  whirling  snow.  Outside  the 
cardinal  -  birds  were  at  their  early  mating, 
and  darted  to  and  fro  among  the  fragile,  airy 
flakes,  like  little  winged  flames  from  the  very 
altar  of  love,  while  on  her  hearth  the  blaz- 
ing cedar  made  yet  another  note  of  living 
scarlet.  And  as  she  sat  there  she  noticed 
that  one  of  the  roses,  a  great  half-shut  blossom, 
began  to  unfurl  its  petals,  little  by  little,  as 
though  under  some  soft  enchantment.  It  was 
213 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

blooming,  opening  its  heart  as  to  the  spring, 
there  in  that  snow-lighted,  winter  room. 
Then,  looking  closer,  she  saw  that  it  had 
loosened  itself  in  the  tall  glass,  and  was  bend- 
ing over  too  near  to  the  fire.  And  as  she 
watched  it,  words  began  to  sing  themselves 
in  her  mind's  ear,  in  that  way  they  had, 
and  presently  she  reached  forth  a  listless 
hand  and  wrote  them  down — a  little  rhyme 
that  held  some  tenderness  and  meaning  for 
her  alone: 

O,  innocent,  passionate  rose, 

That  openest  thy  heart  to  the  fire, 
Thy  true  love  the  sun  only  knows 

The  secret  of  life  in  desire. 
O  dearest,  my  sister,  the  rose, 

Thy  fate  of  mine  own  is  a  part; 
The  little  false  flame  where  it  glows 

Will  die — leaving  death  at  thy  heart. 

Long  after  Anice  found  them,  wrapped 
about  the  faded  petals  of  the  rose,  and  with 
bitter,  unavailing  tears  laid  them  in  the  still 
hand  that  had  written  them — for  Meraud 
did  not  live  to  endure  the  old  age  that  she 
dreaded,  though  many  years  lay  yet  before  her. 
214 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

Below  stairs  Anice  and  Dundas  were  talk- 
ing of  her,  as  they  had  so  often  talked  before. 

"He  has  failed  her!  He  has  failed  her!" 
Anice  cried.  "She  says  nothing.  She  al- 
ways defends  him  in  every  way.  But  look 
at  her — look  at  her  eyes.  Isn't  it  written 
there  for  any  one  who  loves  her  to  read  ? 
Oh,  I  pray  God  to  keep  me  from  hating 
him." 

"We  must  be  reasonable,  my  dear,"  said 
Dundas,  slowly.  "After  all,  he  is  human, 
and  she's  not  altogether  human,  I  think — 
at  least,  she  has  been  wrenched  from  the 
normal,  human  growth  by  a  terrible  experi- 
ence. She  reaches  out  after  supports  known 
only  to  her — and  finds  them,  I  think." 

"But  he  failed  her — he  failed  her,"  per- 
sisted Anice,  bitterly. 

"And  isn't  there  tragedy  for  him  in  that 
too?"  asked  Dundas.  "Isn't  that  the  real 
tragedy  of  life— to  be  too  little  for  the  great 
moment  ?  To  feel  it  blinding  and  smother- 
ing where  it  should  clothe,  like  the  *  Robe  of 
Glory'  in  the  old  Egyptian  hymn  ?" 

"But  her  happiness — her  whole  life — her 
happiness!" 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"She  will  find  her  happiness  in  being  able 
to  set  aside  happiness,  and  yet  remain  her- 
self— unshaken — sweet  to  the  core.  She  is 
like  one  of  those  springs  of  fresh  water  that 
rise  sometimes  in  the  sea.  All  the  bitterness 
of  all  the  waters  of  Marah  going  over  her 
will  not  embitter  her.  But  it's  a  grim 
story,"  he  continued.  "To  me  the  grimmest 
tragedies  are  those  that  have  a  giggle  in 
them  —  a  secret  snicker,  as  of  Goat  -  foot 
watching  a  man  fall  over  a  precipice  because 
his  boot -heel  caught  in  something.  'Such 
silly  things,  boot-heels!'  says  he;  'serves  him 
right.'  There's  that  element  in  this  that 
has  happened  to  Meraud — vast  matter  for 
snickering  to  the  world  if  the  world  knew. 
She  dared  to  use  wings.  We  all  know  what 
happened  to  Icarus.  'Serves  him  right/ 
Melted  wax  and  a  breakneck  fall,  that's  what 
his  ideal  ended  in!  But  she  falls  up.  Her 
wings  aren't  waxed  on;  they  are  rooted  in 
her  life.  A  wind  has  blown  her  off  her 
course,  beyond  her  present  goal.  That's 
all.  There  are  bigger  things  in  store  for 
that  soul  than  the  love  of  just  one  for  just 
one." 

216 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"  But  it  was  her  life — all  her  life,"  said 
Anice. 

"No,  my  dear.  Her  life  is  a  bigger  thing 
than  that,  beautiful  as  it  was — as  she  makes 
everything  that  she  takes  up  into  herself." 

"And  this  'bigger  thing?'"  asked  Anice, 
anxiously. 

"The  whole  world,  my  dear.  Isn't  a 
whole  world  of  men  bigger  than  one  man — 
the  whole  world  of  souls  that  will  be  drawn 
to  her?  You — I — Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry— 
if  they  need  her.  Have  you  felt  no  jealousy 
—not  one  littlest  nip,  in  all  these  months, 
Miss  Anice  ?  /  have,  I  can  tell  you.  She 
had  a  rampart  about  her — of  heavenly  gold, 
if  you  like,  but  it  was  a  rampart  all  the 
same.  Could  you  reach  her  over  it  ?  Could 
you  really  touch  her  ?  /  couldn't,  and  the 
fangs  clenched  —  they  met,  I  tell  you.  I 
feel  the  smart  of  it  now,  selfish  old  curmud- 
geon that  I  am.  Yet  it's  not  quite  fair  to 
myself  to  let  you  think  that  I  can  sit  here 
philosophizing  and  not  feeling  the  grip  of 
her  pain — and  of  yours."  He  reached  out 
and  grasped  her  hand  for  an  instant.  "It 
throttles  me  at  times,"  he  said,  unsteadily, 
217 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

and  was  silent  for  some  moments  watching 
the  ceaseless  flight  of  the  snow  past  the  dark 
box-hedges  outside. 

"You  are  good  to  tell  me  that  you  felt 
jealous  too,"  Anice  said,  presently.  "Oh 
yes,  I  was  jealous — shamefully,  horridly  jeal- 
ous. That  little  sweet,  absent  way  that  she 
used  to  do  things  for  me  —  talk  to  me  —  I 
knew  that  she  was  longing  to  be  off  in  some 
beautiful  dreamland  with  him  alone  all  the 
while.  I  was  so  ashamed  of  myself.  I'd 
never  have  had  the  courage  to  admit  it  but 
for  you." 

"So,  you  see,"  Dundas  said,  in  that  slow, 
cogitating  way  that  he  had  when  profoundly 
moved,  "some  force  greater  than  our  love, 
which  would  have  helped  to  shut  her  in  her 
dreamland,  shattered  the  'dome  of  many 
colored  glass*  that  Shelley  likens  life  to,  and 
that  was  her  life  for  the  time  being.  Inside, 
for  her,  were  all  the  wonders  of  Eden,  but 
the  outside  was  hard  to  us  poor,  unelect  mor- 
tals who  loved  her  too  clumsily — the  best  we 
knew  how." 

"But  now,"  said  Anice—  "how  is  it  any 
better  now  ?  She  seems  farther  away  from 
218 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

me  than  ever,  in  this  dreadful,  smiling 
silence." 

"You  know  the  law  of  the  transmutation 
of  forces,"  he  answered.  "Well,  love  is  a 
great  force,  and  it  adds  another  condition  to 
that  law,  for  it  can  only  be  changed  into 
another  aspect  of  itself.  She  will  come  back 
to  us,  my  dear,  never  fear.  Those  big 
natures  always  move  in  circles.  She  will 
come  back,  and  her  sorrow  will  have  given 
her  some  more  beautiful  message  for  the 
healing  of  our  hearts — and  hers." 

"She  is  the  bravest  creature,"  Anice  said, 
faltering  a  little.  "She  even  laughs  and 
makes  me  laugh  at  times." 

"As  if  she  would  slink  about  wearing 
the  willow!"  cried  Dundas,  indignantly. 
"Laugh?  Of  course  she  laughs!  She  is 
the  sort  to  die  with  a  jest  on  her  lips  if  she 
felt  that  it  would  comfort  her  friends.  And 
then  she  has  that  access  to  higher  sources  of 
strength  which  can  make  of  one  little,  fragile 
woman  a  natural  wonder  like  Leviathan. 
There  are  times,"  he  went  on,  with  that  half- 
sad  whimsicality  which  he  allowed  himself 
to  use  in  speaking  to  those  who  knew  him 
219 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

well,  "there  are  times  when  I  believe  in 
God,  just  because  it  must  have  taken  a  God 
to  make  a  being  like  that.  And  when  you 
are  tempted  to  be  discouraged  about  her, 
about  the  effect  that  this  sorrow  may  have 
upon  her,  remember  what  I  once  said  to  you 
in  regard  to  that  elastic  quality  of  her  spirit — 
that  power  of  recovering  quickly  from  a 
shock.  Recover  the  old  joy,  the  old  lightness 
— no.  But  there  will  be  wider  joys — more 
catholic  happiness.  For  she  will  find  happi- 
ness yet.  It  is  within  her  somewhere  and  she 
has  a  natural  gift  for  finding  it,  like  the  gift  of 
some  people  to  find  water  with  a  hazel  twig." 

Anice  was  sitting  with  her  eyes  fixed  as  if  on 
some  distant  point  to  which  his  words  directed. 

"She  has  a  great  faith,"  she  said,  finally; 
"at  least,  I  can't  think  of  any  better  word 
for  it.  I  count  on  that  for  her  more  than 
on  anything  else.  Do  you  remember  those 
last  lines  of  Emily  Bronte  ?  They  describe 
what  I  mean  about  her  more  than  anything 
else  that  I  know." 

"No,  I  don't  know  them,"  said  Dundas. 
"Can  you  repeat  them  to  me?" 

"Yes,"  she  said.     And  in  a  low  voice  that 

220 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

wavered    sometimes    she    repeated    for    him 
those  majestic  lines: 

"No  coward  soul  is  mine, 

No    trembler    in    the    world's    storm-troubled 

sphere. 
I  see  Heaven's  glories  shine, 

And  faith  shines  equal,  arming  me  from  fear. 

"O  God  within  my  breast, 

Almighty,  ever-present  Deity! 
Life — that  in  me  hath  rest, 

As  I — undying  Life — have  power  in  thee! 

"Vain  are  the  thousand  creeds 

That  move  men's  hearts;    unutterably  vain; 
Worthless  as  withered  weeds, 

Or  idlest  froth  amid  the  boundless  main, 

"To  waken  doubt  in  one 

Holding  so  fast  by  thine  Infinity; 
So  surely  anchored  on 

The  steadfast  rock  of  immortality. 

"With  wide-embracing  love 

Thy  Spirit  animates  eternal  years, 
Pervades  and  broods  above, 

Changes,  sustains,  dissolves,  creates,  and  rears, 
221 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"Though  earth  and  man  were  gone 

And  suns  and  universes  ceased  to  be, 
And  Thou  wert  left  alone, 

Every  existence  would  exist  in  thee. 

"There  is  no  room  for  Death, 

Nor  atom  that  his  might  could  render  void. 
Thou — THOU  art  Being  and  Breath, 

And  what  THOU  art  may  never  be  destroyed." 

"Oh  yes,  yes!'*  she  cried,  when  she  had 
finished,  "she  will  come  back  to  us.  Just 
saying  those  great  words  has  comforted  me. 
It  is  so  entirely  what  she  feels.  I  remember 
once — only  last  summer — in  that  lovely  time 
before  he  came — we  had  been  standing  on 
the  upper  porch,  looking  at  the  stars  and 
speaking  of  eternal  things,  and  she  lifted  up 
her  arms  suddenly  in  that  way  she  has,  and 
smiled,  and  said:  "Oh,  Anice!  Men  search 
here  and  travel  there — seeking — seeking— 
and  all  the  while  God  is  the  great  Romance, 
the  great  Adventure!" 

"She  is  safe,"  he  said.     "Ah,  she  is  very 
safe." 

And    meantime,    Meraud,    in    her    lonely 
222 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

quietude  above,  was  writing  the  little  rhyme 
that  expressed  some  of  the  emptiness,  some 
of  the  disillusion  of  her  spirit,  while  here, 
in  the  room  just  beneath  her,  one  man's 
heart  ached  for  her  with  the  love  of  which 
she  had  dreamed,  and  of  which  she  never 
knew,  and  knowing  which  she  could  not  have 
returned.  Is  not  this  life  ? 

They  saw  her  a  few  moments  later,  as  she 
slipped  out  into  the  pale  winter  world,  a  slight 
figure  in  dark  furs,  walking  with  head  down- 
bent  towards  the  garden.  Then  the  frail 
whiteness  closed  about  her  and  she  was  gone. 

She  went  under  the  old  arch,  laced  with 
the  brown  stems  of  the  June  roses,  through 
the  great  box-hedge,  and  along  the  garden 
to  the  old  moon-dial.  Its  letters,  that  had 
been  filled  with  rose  leaves  on  that  "white 
night"  so  long  ago — how  many  lives  ago?— 
were  now  brimmed  with  the  chill  petals  of 
the  snow.  She  brushed  them  away  now,  as 
she  had  done  then,  and  read  again  the  legend 
cut  in  its  worn  face.  "Ad  astra  per  aspera" 
she  said,  softly,  and  lifted  up  her  eyes;  but 
this  white  day  held  no  stars,  save  the  delicate 
snow-crystals  that  fell  upon  the  dark  surface 
223 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

of  her  sleeve,  that  touched  her  brow,  her  eyes, 
her  lips,  with  soft  austerity  as  of  a  caress  from 
gentle  and  desired  death.  And  she  remem- 
bered how  she  had  cried  out,  exultantly,  "All 
the  worlds  shall  bring  cedar  to  build  my 
house!"  Now  her  house  of  love  was  fallen  in 
ruins  about  her,  and  she  must  build  for  her 
soul  another  habitation. 

"  But  he  can  never  give  again  what  he  has 
given  me,"  she  thought;  "that  is  a  life 
lived — a  life  given."  And  she  remembered 
a  story  that  a  great  writer  had  once  told  her, 
one  of  the  unpublished  tales  that  he  used  to 
tell  so  vividly — the  story  of  a  man  who  is 
watching  the  clock,  knowing  that  by  an  in- 
evitable fate  his  dearest  friend  must  die  when 
the  hand  reaches  a  certain  hour.  And  the 
hour  strikes  and  the  man  is  torn  by  agony, 
and  weeps  and  weeps  until  he  is  like  one 
dead  himself.  And  when  he  is  all  outworn 
with  grief,  his  servant  comes  in  to  set  the 
clock — because  it  is  an  hour  slow.  And 
then  the  man  knows  that  his  friend  is  not 
yet  dead,  but  his  feeling  has  spent  itself  in  the 
false  hour,  and  when  the  actual  moment 
comes,  he  cannot  feel  again  as  he  had  felt. 
224 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

"It  is  like  that,"  she  thought;  "the  hour 
was  wrong  from  eternity,  but  he  thought  it 
the  true  hour,  and — he  spent  it  in  loving  me 
as  he  can  never  love  again.  More  or  less 
he  may  love,  but  never  just  the  same — never 
quite  as  he  loved  me.  He  will  marry,  and 
have  children,  and  live  and  love  like  other 
men — and  it  is  right  and  well  that  it  should 
be  so.  But  sometime — perhaps  when  he  is 
old,  perhaps  when  death  is  near  him — some- 
time, sometime — he  will  know  that  I,  the 
dream,  was  the  real.  It  is  given  me  to  know 
that  —  yes,  it  is  given  me  to  know  that." 
And  as  she  stood  there  she  sent  out  her 
thoughts  to  him  in  those  tender  wishes  for 
his  good  which  are  the  truest  prayers,  while 
all  about  her,  through  the  white  mist  of  the 
snow,  the  red-birds  flashed  with  their  sweet 
note  of  wooing.  So  still  she  stood  that  at 
last  one  of  them  —  the  shyest  of  the  shy 
creatures  of  the  air — came  and  alighted  near 
her  on  the  old  moon-dial,  and  whetted  his 
scarlet  beak  upon  its  edge.  It  was  as  though 
the  lovely  spirit  of  one  of  those  dead  June 
roses  haunted  its  former  place  in  this  beauti- 
ful way.  But  Meraud  did  not  see  it.  She 
225 


THE   GOLDEN   ROSE 

was  looking  out  of  the  winter  world  into  the 
place  of  dreams. 

"Always  the  painted  apple,"  she  was  say- 
ing in  her  heart,  "always  the  painted  apple 
—never  the  golden  rose — not  here." 

And  she  seemed  to  see  herself,  a  little 
figure  far  off,  very  tired,  very  old,  bearing 
a  painted  apple  in  her  hand  and  toiling  along 
"the  ancient,  narrow  path — as  hard  to  tread 
as  the  edge  of  a  razor." 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hilgard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


A    000  791  995    4 


